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    1. Finally, the Commission seeks to determine whether, on the point under consideration, there is a violation of Article 14 of the Convention, read in conjunction with Article 2 of the Protocol (art. 14+P1-2) or Article 8 (art. 14+8) of the Convention. After emphasising that "a language system for education, organised on a territorial basis", is not necessarily contrary to the Convention, as it "might be justified" by "administrative, financial or other considerations", it examines in detail the legislation criticised by the Applicants with a view to discovering its "general effect". In its view, this study shows that the legislation in dispute "has neither the object nor the effect of ensuring the qualifications thought necessary for the exercise of certain functions or professions, nor indeed of ensuring linguistic knowledge". It proves also that "the language reforms" aimed "initially at removing the abuses which had occurred in the nineteenth century under the system of absolute linguistic freedom, the whole brunt of which had been borne by the Dutch-speaking population", but that the Acts of 1932 and 1963 had "reversed the position". "The parallelism established between the Flemish and Walloon regions" is "not complete, at least under the 1963 Acts"; further still it operates in practice "against French-speaking people living in the Flemish region" while "it hardly affects the Flemish population of Wallonia". "In so far as it is real" it further has the effect of "introducing distinctions in each of the two regions" which "are not affected by their reciprocal character". "The loopholes provided for the French-speaking population", in particular scholastic emigration, entail "inconvenience and dangers" which make them "ineffective". "What is more, certain provisions in the Acts concerned" exceed their official purpose: "they can only be explained by a desire to halt the spread of the French language in the Flemish zone", indeed to assimilate the "French-speaking population of Flanders", against their will, "into the sphere of the language of the region". Although "The Commission readily understands the attachment of the Flemish population to their language and culture and their desire to preserve and develop them", and although "a policy which reflects such aspirations therefore appears quite legitimate in itself", it cannot consequently "find it illegitimate that French-speaking people living in Flanders should seek to protect their own language" which "has been established there for centuries". Without disputing the fact that the Belgian Government is "entitled to refrain from positive action to meet the wishes of the French-speaking population", the Commission questions "the result of a policy which thwarts them by measures of compulsion and by penalties". Is not such a policy in danger of "producing wrongs similar to those" which existed in the past, but "with the difference that this time it is the French-speaking population which would suffer"? "In any event" a reading of the documents shows "clearly, in the view of the majority of the Commission, the intention of the Belgian Government and of the Belgian legislature to place the French speaking population in the Flemish region at a disadvantage in relation to the Dutch-speaking inhabitants"; the 1932 legislation created "numerous inequalities which have been markedly aggravated by the 1963 legislation to the detriment of the former and the benefit of the latter".
    2. In the opinion of the Commission, the inequalities derived from the laws on the use of languages in education in the unilingual regions do not however constitute discrimination contrary to Article 14 (art. 14). Despite the fact that the Belgian Government has not shown the necessity for "these inequalities and disadvantages", that "a double system of education, both Dutch and French", would certainly be sufficient to remove the wrongs which existed in the past, that unilingualism is not based on "financial, technical or administrative" requirements, and that no account is taken of the "number or degree of French-speaking persons" living in Flanders, five members of the Commission "hesitate to consider" the system "discriminatory". They recall that the Convention and the Protocol do not oblige States to establish or to subsidise any education at all; from this they infer that the Belgian State, "in encouraging education in Dutch" and "discouraging education in French" grants "a privilege" to the Flemish-speaking inhabitants without inflicting "hardships" on French-speaking inhabitants. They add that the Contracting States "are generally content to provide or give support to education in their national language" and to throw it open to "all their inhabitants" on equal conditions; the Belgian State has not departed from this rule "of international conduct": "it has simply adapted it, certainly in a summary manner, to the fact that there are several linguistic groups in Belgium". This being so, the five members concerned "do not feel it necessary to dwell on criticisms made by the Applicants of certain matters of detail in the legislation", for example the rule relating to the teaching of the second national language: if "the State's refusal to establish or subsidise schools" does not constitute a discrimination "it necessarily follows that the State enjoys a (...) margin of discretion with regard to the organisation of curricula in official or subsidised education". Four other members also arrive, although for different reasons, at the conclusion that the system of language regulation in education in the unilingual regions is "not incompatible with the Convention". On the other hand, three members of the Commission do not accept this conclusion. Two of them in substance hold the opinion that "the refusal to organise or subsidise French education in localities where there is a sufficient number of French-speaking persons" is also covered by Article 14 (art. 14).
      1. 3. Decision of the Court
    3. The first question concerns exclusively those provisions of the Acts of 1932 and 1963 which prevented, or prevent, in the regions which are by law deemed unilingual, the establishment or subsidisation by the State of schools not in conformity with the general linguistic requirements.
      In the present case, this question principally concerns the State's refusal to establish or subsidise, in the Dutch unilingual region, primary school education (which is compulsory in Belgium) in which French is employed as the language of instruction.
      Such a refusal is not incompatible with the requirements of the first sentence of Article 2 of the Protocol (P1-2). In interpreting this provision, the Court has already held that it does not enshrine the right to the establishment or subsidising of schools in which education is provided in a given language. The first sentence of Article 2 (P1-2) contains in itself no linguistic requirement. It guarantees the right of access to educational establishments existing at a given time and the right to obtain, in conformity with the rules in force in each State and in one form or another, the official recognition of studies which have been completed, this last right not being relevant to the point which is being dealt with here. In the unilingual regions, both French-speaking and Dutch-speaking children have access to public or subsidised education, that is to say to education conducted in the language of the region.
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