Decision on operating subsidies for a special school accommodating both disabled and non-disabled students

Facts

The Schweizerische Schwerhörigen-Schule Landenhof (hereinafter "the school") has introduced a secondary I level program in its institution, allowing gifted hearing-impaired children to receive pre-gymnasium education. With the approval of the Department of Education of the Canton of Aargau, the school has experimentally admitted hearing students to this program since the 1974/75 school year. Given the success of this experiment, the number of hearing students has gradually increased, reaching a maximum of 19 hearing students and 16 hearing-impaired students in 1977/78. The Federal Social Insurance Office (OFAS) granted the school operating subsidies of CHF 1,091,214 for the 1976 fiscal year and CHF 1,141,122 for the 1977 fiscal year. These decisions did not include information on legal remedies. In calculating these subsidies, OFAS took into account the fact that the hearing students only attended the school as external students and therefore proportionately excluded the costs related to the boarding school. These deductions resulted in a reduction of the cantonal subsidies by CHF 57,530 for 1976 and CHF 50,028 for 1977.

Considerations

The school filed a request for revision with OFAS to obtain reimbursement of these deducted amounts. OFAS rejected this request. The school then filed an administrative appeal with the Federal Department of the Interior (DFI), which subsequently transferred the case to the Federal Insurance Court.

The Federal Insurance Court first examined its jurisdiction to hear the appeal. It considered that, despite the absence of information on legal remedies in OFAS's decisions, the appeal against the decision of September 19, 1978 should be considered filed within the time limit, in accordance with the principles of good faith and legal certainty. However, the question of the admissibility of the appeal against the decision of July 14, 1977 was left open, as the Court considered that this did not affect the outcome of the dispute.

On the merits, the Court ruled that the subsidies granted by the disability insurance to institutions did not…