Due to “racial segregation”, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Hungary in a case

The European Court of Human Rights condemned Hungary in a case related to the educational segregation of the Roma. The court called on the government to come up with a policy that would not allow this practice. 

A Roma student wanted to transfer to a different school

Between 2013 and 2014, the plaintiff of the case, who is of Roma origin, attended a primary school attended exclusively by Roma students, writes MTI. According to the complainant, the curriculum taught at the school was substandard. Less than 10 percent of the students there continued their education. The complainant’s mother applied to the education office to transfer her son to another school that would better accommodate his mild learning difficulties due to hearing loss.

The request was rejected by the Constitutional Court

The mother’s request of switching schools was rejected as the child did not live in the affected school district. According to the plaintiff, the school was only five minutes from his place of residence by public transport. In December 2015, the applicant filed a constitutional complaint, citing his right to non-discriminatory education, but the Hungarian Constitutional Court rejected it. They thought the case did not raise a constitutional issue.

The European Court of Human Rights condemned Hungary

The European Court of Human Rights found that the complainant was “educated in segregated conditions”. Therefore, the state should have been obliged to take steps to eliminate these inequalities and to avoid the perpetuation of discrimination against the Roma. The judgment states that social coexistence free of racial segregation is a fundamental value in democratic societies. To ensure this, integrated education is a key element.

Hungary must pay the plaintiff EUR 7,000 (HUF 2.7 million) as moral damages and an additional EUR 4,537 (HUF 1.7 million) in court costs.

School graduation of Roma women is expected to increase in the future

The number of women of childbearing age is decreasing nationwide. Therefore, fewer children will be born in the next 40 years. This trend is not characteristic of Roma society, in their case the number of women of childbearing age was 155,000 in 2011, which is expected to increase in the future. At the same time, school graduation of Roma women is projected to increase in the future. However, this also means that they will have fewer children and their fertility ratio will decrease. There is a close connection between education and fertility: as the education level increases, the average number of children decreases. Nevertheless, changes in the fertility “behaviour” of Roma women will affect the number of women of childbearing age only 15 years later.

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