Swiss girl loses two-year legal battle against 90 minute after-school detention

The unnamed pupil found herself in trouble for skiing down a forbidden run during a school trip to the Klosters resort

A Swiss schoolgirl who went to extraordinary lengths to escape detention has had her appeal against the 90-minute punishment thrown out by the courts.

The unnamed pupil’s two-year battle began in March 2011 when the 14-year-old found herself in trouble for skiing down a forbidden run during a school trip to the Klosters resort. She and four friends were ordered to attend an after-school detention, but the girl failed to show up.

School officials contacted her parents in the hope that they would press her to attend. But instead they sided with their daughter and challenged the disciplinary action. The school board and the educational department in Grisons rejected the parents’ plea and said the pupils should have followed instructions regardless of whether they had knowingly disobeyed the orders or found themselves off-limits by accident, the Swiss newspaper, Tages Anzeiger, reported.

The family took their case to the local administrative court, which also turned them down, and finally asked for a hearing at the Supreme Court in Lausanne. The court threw the case out and in its ruling, made in July and published on Monday, ordered the parents to pay 2,000 francs (£1,387) in costs.

As the teenager has now left the school in question, she will no longer have to serve the detention.