MINELRES: Comment on Restrictions on Language of Education in Latvia and Yelena Grishankova and Oleg Grishankov Case

[Dr Fernand de Varennes]

MINELRES recently announced in "Minority issues in Latvia, No. 64" that the 
European Court of Human Rights declared inadmissible the application of 
Yelena Grishankova and Oleg Grishankov concerning the "education reform 2004".

It is clear that the case was inadmissibile as not all domestic remedies in 
Latvia had been exhausted.

However, there is another point which needs some further consideration. 
"Minority issues in Latvia, No. 64" also contains the following conclusion:

"We already pointed out that the application could be rejected on the 
reason mentioned by the European Court of Human Rights. Moreover, we think 
that the violation would not be found either by the Constitutional Court or 
by the European Court even if consideration on the merits would take place 
 the Belgian linguistic case of 1968 is a landmark precedent in this 
respect. We still believe that the problem should be solved rather by 
political means."

I think the matter needs to be looked closer. The Belgian Linguistic Case, 
simply put, did not say that any type of official language policy would 
always comply with Article 14 (non-discrimination) applied to the Protocol 
on education of the European Convention on Human Rights. It ruled that 
overall, most of the language regime on the use of French and Dutch in 
Belgium was reasonable and in proportional in pursuit of a legitimate 
objective, and therefore did not involve a violation of Article 14 and the 
Protocol. A somewhat similar approach, by the way, was followed recently by 
the UN Human Rights Committee in a matter involved public officials only 
allowed to use English (the exclusive official language) in Diergaardt v 
Namibia.

This means that if a State has an unreasonable or arbitrary language policy 
in the area of public education, this would be a violation of the European 
Convention on the basis of the reasoning in the Belgian Linguistics case, 
as well as numerous other cases that set out the approach to adopt when 
applying non-discrimination.

I am not passing judgment on the language policy of Latvia in the area of 
public education - that is a serious and complex issue that needs to be 
examined according to legal principles. But it is not correct in my view to 
automatically conclude that the Belgian Linguistics Case has completely 
closed the line of argument using Article 14 and the additional protocol on 
education.

Regards,
-----------------------------
Dr Fernand de Varennes, LL.B. (Moncton), LL.M. (LSE), Dr.Iuris (Maastricht)
Senior Lecturer

Former Director, Asia-Pacific Centre on Human Rights and the Law

Editor-in-Chief, Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law

"So now, in the end, if this the least be good,
If any deed be done, if any fire
Burn in the imperfect page, the praise be thine"
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School of Law - Murdoch University
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