The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) does not consider Latvia’s decision to increase the share of education in schools in the state language to be discrimination against the Russian-speaking minority.
This is stated in the court decision in the case of Valiullina and others v. Latvia, published September 14.
The case concerns changes to Latvian legislation from 2018, according to which the share of subjects that must be taught in Latvian in public schools has increased, and the use of the Russian language has decreased.
Now watching
The lawsuit against Latvia was filed by parents of children who itself to the Russian-speaking minority. They referred to Art. 2 Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to education), alone and in combination with Article 14 ECHR (protection against discrimination).
The ECtHR concluded that these legislative changes do not constitute a violation of the Convention.
In particular, the judges noted that the right to education enshrined in Article 2 of Protocol 1 does not imply the right to education in a specific language, but guarantees the right to education in one of the official languages of the given state. Since the Latvian language in Latvia is the only state language, the applicants could not complain under this point regarding the reduction in the share of education in Russian.
Moreover, the applicants did not provide specific arguments as to why these changes would have a negative impact on their ability to obtain an education. Consequently, the claim in this part was declared inadmissible.
The Court also came to the conclusion that students from Russian-speaking and Latvian families in schools after the reform, the purpose of which was to overcome linguistic segregation in the education system as a legacy of the Soviet era, found themselves in relatively equal conditions.
The summary of the decision notes that Latvia, by restoring the use of the Latvian language as the language of education and gradually introducing educational reform, did not cross borders, since it retained the opportunity for Russian-speaking students to study in their native language and preserve their culture and identity.
— The state has introduced an educational system that operates in the official language of the state, also ensuring the use of minority languages in varying proportions, depending on the school and grade where the student is studying. The government has provided objective and reasonable justification for the need to increase the use of Latvian as the language of education in the educational system. In sum, the disputed difference in treatment served a legitimate purpose, was proportionate and did not constitute discrimination on the basis of language, — noted in the court decision.
Recall that on July 18, the European Court of Human Rights announced its decision in the case of Russia v. Ukraine (No. 36958/21), refusing to satisfy the claims of the aggressor country in full . The Russian government complained about the alleged murders, kidnappings and persecution of Russian citizens since 2014, restrictions on the Russian language, and also tried to shift responsibility for the crash of flight MH17 over the Donbass and for the cessation of water supply to Crimea.
Previously, the ECHR ordered Russia to pay Georgia €129 million for human rights violations in temporarily occupied territories after the invasion in 2008.
