Czech EdMin plan for implementing the D.H. judgment

The Czech Education Ministry has issued the following press release, which news server Romea.cz presents here in translation:

The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, in collaboration with other state institutions, has prepared an updated plan of measures for executing the 2007 judgment of the European Court for Human Rights (ECtHR) in the matter of D.H. versus the Czech Republic. Those measures will be presented to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which oversees the execution of ECtHR judgments, at a session of the Committee on 5 December 2012 in Strasbourg.

Five years ago, the ECtHR decided that the system for placing pupils outside of mainstream education in the Czech Republic discriminated against Romani people in their access to education, even though that system used ethnically neutral criteria. That discrimination violates the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The ECtHR is the supreme legal authority on human rights questions as per that 1950 Council of Europe convention.

Czech Deputy Education Minister Jiří Nantl says the kind of "special schools" to which the plaintiffs in the ECtHR case were assigned have since been abolished through the introduction of the new School Act in 2005. However, despite this and other measures, including amendments to several implementing regulations in 2011, a report by the Public Defender of Rights and the findings of the Czech School Inspection Authority have revealed that the essence of this problem – a disproportionately high representation of Romani children among pupils assigned to educational programs intended for those with "light mental disability" – still persists.

This fact is the topic of extensive domestic and international discussion and criticism of the Czech Republic. The Committee of Ministers, therefore, recently called on the Czech Republic to accelerate its implementation of the D.H. judgment.

The measures included in the ministry’s updated plan for executing the judgment concentrate on improving the guarantee of equal access to education as per the Czech Constitution and the School Act. "Given the fact that, as per the legislation now in effect, schooling is no longer segmented according to school types, but according to educational programs, the measures concerning revisions to the configuration of programs for pupils with special educational needs and revisions to the process of diagnosing those special educational needs will target the very essence of the problem we have been addressing," said First Deputy Education Minister Jiří Nantl.

The plan of measures for executing the D.H. judgment will be implemented over the next two years. The ministry expects a concrete, visible improvement of the situation, which will be monitored through conclusive statistical data.