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News server Romea.cz. Everything about Roma in one place

Council of Europe supports Czech measures to implement D. H. judgment

10 December 2012
2 minute read

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

At its meeting on 5 – 6 December 2012, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe reviewed and then expressed support for the Czech Government’s consolidated action plan to execute the judgment handed down in D.H. and Others vs. Czech Republic. The plan was designed by the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport in collaboration with other state institutions such as the Office of the Government and the Public Defender of Rights. The Council of Europe session in Strasbourg was attended by First Deputy Education Minister Jiří Nantl, accompanied by the Czech Ambassador to the Council of Europe, Tomáš Boček; the Czech Government representative to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), Vít Schorm; and the director of the ministry’s Educational System and Further Education Department, Jakub Stárek.

Five years ago, the ECtHR ruled that the system of assigning pupils to attend schools outside of mainstream education in the Czech Republic was causing discrimination against Romani people in their access to education despite that system’s use of ethnically neutral criteria. This discrimination violates the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

The court is the top legal authority on human rights questions as per that Council of Europe convention from 1950. According to the international convention, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe oversees the execution of the court’s judgments.

"Extraordinary attention is being devoted to this matter at international level, as proven by the fact that a significant number of member states joined yesterday’s debate at the Council of Europe," Nantl said. "The positive responses in their contributions and the conclusions adopted by the Council of Europe session show that we are on the right path. Fulfilling the adopted plan of measures is now of crucial significance."

Unlike previous sessions at which the Council of Europe and other institutions criticized the Czech Republic for delays in improving equal access to education for members of the Romani minority and the socially disadvantaged, the consolidated action plan of measures to execute the D.H. judgment was accepted positively at the Committee of Ministers session and a resolution on it was approved without any proposals for modification. The plan was designed over the past six months under the leadership of Czech Education Minister Petr Fiala.

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