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    1. Nor does the Court find, on the point under consideration, any discrimination contrary to Article 14 of the Convention, read in conjunction with the first sentence of Article 2 of the Protocol (art. 14+P1-2) or with Article 8 (art. 14+8) of the Convention; such discrimination has not, in any case, been shown by the Applicants.
    2. In its memorial of 16th December 1965, the Commission drew the attention of the Court to the fact that where there exists a dual system of official or subsidised education, as for instance at Brussels, parents are not free to choose between French and Dutch as the language of education for their children. In the present case, this question assumes a theoretical character since the Applicants declare themselves to be French-speaking and wish their children to be educated in French; indeed the Commission has not failed to point out this fact. The Court cannot settle a problem which does not arise in the present case.
      1. E. As to the fifth question
      <LI value=26>The fifth question concerns the issue as to whether or not, in the case of the Applicants, there is a violation of Article 2 of the Protocol (P1-2) or of Articles 8 and 14 (art. 8, art. 14) of the Convention, or of any of those Articles,
      "in so far as Section 7, last paragraph, of the Act of 30th July 1963 and Section 7, third paragraph, of the Act of 2nd August 1963 prevent certain children, solely on the basis of their parents' place of residence, from attending French-language schools at Louvain and in the six communes" on the outskirts of Brussels which enjoy a "special status", including Kraainem."
      1. The Facts
      <LI value=27>Under Section 7, second paragraph in fine, of the Act of 30th July 1963, a motivated Royal Decree, after deliberation in the Council of Ministers and being published in full in the "Official Gazette", may provide for exceptions to the provisions of Section 4 - which concerns the unilingual regions - in respect of:
      "Special teaching classes, technical education classes which are at present in existence, and secondary school classes which are at present in existence, serving as teacher-training for a university and which are situated in the same urban area as such university. Such classes shall be open only to children whose maternal or usual language is not the language taught in the region in which the school is situated, and where the head of the family resides outside such region or is covered by the special regime provided for in Section 40 of the Act on the use of language in administrative matters; they are also open to children of foreign nationality, where the head of the family belongs to an organisation set up under international law, an embassy, legation or consulate."
      Section 40 of the Act of 2nd August 1963 on the use of languages in administrative matters, to which this provision refers, concerns "the employees, students and teaching staff" of the "bilingual University situated in a commune not subject to a special regime", "as well as members of their families living with them".
      In pursuance of Section 7, second paragraph in fine, of the Act of 30th July 1963, a Royal Decree of 8th August 1963, published in the Official Gazette of 22nd August 1963, introduced "temporary exceptions to the provisions of Section 4" of the same Act. The main provisions of the Royal Decree were as follows:
      "BAUDOUIN, King of the Belgians,
      (...)
      Whereas the short space of time between the publication of this Act and its implementation makes it impossible to carry out a thorough study of the situation of the various existing classes which might avail themselves of a derogation from the provisions of Section 4
      (...);
      Whereas the position during the school year 1963-1964 of the schools concerned should be decided as soon as possible;
      (...),
      We have decreed and do decree:
      Section 1, Official schools and independent schools either subsidised or recognised by the State which, during the school year 1962-1963, provided instruction in a language other than that of the region in which the school is situated, may continue such instruction during the school year 1963-1964:
      (a) (...);
      (b) in the technical or special education classes;
      (c) in the French secondary education classes of the Institut du Sacré-Coeur at Heverlee.
      Such teaching shall be open only to those children who were already registered at the school during the academic year 1962-1963, as well as to children to whom Section 7 of the Act of 30th July 1963 applies.
      Section 2 (...)."
      The Belgian Government, at the request of the Court, produced on 30th November 1967 the text of a Royal Decree of 30th November 1966 "taken in pursuance of Section 7, paragraph 2, 2o of the Act of 30th July 1963". Published in the Official Gazette on 3rd December 1966, this Royal Decree apparently displays a permanent character lacking in that of 8th August 1963. The principal provisions are as follows:
      "BAUDOUIN, King of the Belgians,
      (...)
      Having regard to the existence of organised education in the special teaching classes, and to that on 30th July 1963, of organised education in technical education classes, in secondary school classes serving as teacher training for the Catholic University of Louvain, and which are situated in the same urban area as this University;
      (...);
      Considering the urgency;
      (...);
      We have decreed and do decree:
      Section 1. Education organised in French in special teaching classes as well as that existing on 30th July 1963 in technical education classes and in secondary school classes serving as teacher training for the Catholic University of Louvain, and which are situated in the same urban area as this University, is available to children referred to in Section 7 paragraph 2, 2o of the Act of 30th July 1963, as well as to those who were already enrolled in such classes for the school year 1962-1963.
      Section 2. The present Decree enters into force on 1st September 1966.
      Section 3. (...)"
      The city of Louvain and the adjacent commune of Heverlee are both situated in the "Dutch-language region"; they are a few kilometres from the linguistic frontier. The Catholic University has been situated at Louvain for centuries; it includes both a Flemish and a French section. L'Institut du Sacré-Coeur at Heverlee is also an independent establishment; it formerly had French secondary classes open only to girls. As those classes served, inter alia, as "student teachers" classes of the University, the Royal Decree of 8th August 1963 authorised their retention. As regards the Royal Decree of 30th November 1966, it does not seem to have changed their position to their detriment although it no longer refers expressly to them. The Applicants and the Belgian Government have not drawn attention to the presence of French language classes - official, subsidised or recognised - in the Louvain urban area, other than those of L'Institut du Sacré-Coeur at Heverlee. It appears, however, from the report of the Commission and from the Royal Decrees of 8th August 1963 and 30th November 1966 that special, technical and secondary French-language classes, attached to the University of Louvain, have likewise been able to survive.
      Whether situated at Louvain or at Heverlee, the classes in question enjoy financial support from the State. Admission is granted, however, to four types of children only: children who attended the classes during the school year 1962-1963; children of employees, students and teaching staff of the University as well as members of their family living with them; children of foreign nationality, when the head of the family belongs to an international law organisation, embassy, legation or consulate; and finally, children of French-speaking Belgians if the head of the family lives outside the Dutch-speaking region.
      <LI value=28>Article 7 para. 3 (b) of the Act of 2nd August 1963 has already been cited in extenso in connection with the third question (para. 15 supra). It will be enough to recall here that at Drogenbos, Kraainem, Linkebeek, Rhode-St. Genèse, Wemmel and Wezembeek-Oppem, nursery and primary school teaching must be conducted in French for children when it is their maternal or usual language, "if the head of the family resides in one of the communes" and if "16 heads of family residing within the commune" concerned request it.
      The Commission considers this provision to be "somewhat ambiguous". It gives the following interpretation which the Belgian Government has not disputed:
      "It (...) appears, that heads of family who live in other communes of the same category may not join together to request the opening of a French-school in one of these communes; the request may come only from sixteen heads of family all living in the same commune. On the other hand, it appears certain that if there is a French-speaking school in one of the communes in question, French-speaking children in other communes of the same category (...) may also enter it".
      Whatever the case may be, a child cannot attend the French classes at Drogenbos, Kraainem, Linkebeek, Rhode-St. Genèse, Wemmel or Wezembeek-Oppem if the head of the family resides elsewhere than in one of the six communes enjoying "a special status", for example in the unilingual Flemish region.
      2. Arguments presented by the Applicants before or through the Commission
      <LI value=29>According to the Applicants, the legislation in issue is, on the two points under consideration, incompatible with Article 2 of the Protocol (P1-2) and Articles 8 and 14 (art. 8, art. 14) of the Convention.
      As far as concerns the French classes at Louvain and Heverlee, the signatories of Application No. 1994/63 (Louvain and environs), first assert that Louvain is an asset "belonging to Belgium as a whole" and consequently "should enjoy a national rather than a Flemish status". However the French section of the University was "very nearly" abolished in 1963 in the name of "the principle of the absolute integrity of Flemish territory"; this idea is said to have been given up only for practical and financial reasons and action aiming at the "expulsion" of the French section to Wallonia is now being pursued. The Applicants furthermore emphasise that at Louvain and Heverlee there formerly existed a series of French classes including transmutation classes. The entry into force of the Act of 30th July 1963 brought about the disappearance of the majority of these classes. As for those which remain, they are of a precarious and revocable nature since Section 7 paragraph 2 of the Act of 30th July 1963 is of a permissive not mandatory character ("exceptions may be made").
      The signatories of Application No. 1994/63 reproach the Belgian legislature for preventing them from enrolling their children in the classes which remained. They declare that they are almost all resident at Louvain, Heverlee or in other communes in the unilingual Flemish region, that they are not employees, students or professors at the Catholic University and that they are of Belgian nationality. They admit therefore that they do not comply with the various requirements laid down in Section 7 in fine of the Act of 30th July 1963. The language inspectorate carefully verifies the fulfilment of these conditions; one of the Applicants had personal experience of this. Consequently, Section 7 in fine of the Act of 30th July 1963 runs counter to the "wishes of the Applicants" from Louvain, "to give their children a French education". It brings about a situation "all the more open to criticism since the Applicants" use "the French language" exclusively or principally, and since "they live in a region with a large French-speaking minority where a French school still exists to which they are denied access". This last circumstance shows that it matters little, in this case, whether or not Article 2 of the Protocol (P1-2) creates a positive obligation. In order to give their children the opportunity of pursuing their education in French, the Applicants are obliged either to engage in "scholastic emigration" or to leave Louvain; the result is an infraction of the rights guaranteed by Article 8 (art. 8) of the Convention. By opening French classes at Louvain and Heverlee to certain foreign children and to those of the employees, students and professors of the University, the legislature has established "schools for castes and privileged persons". In general, Section 7 in fine of the Act of 30th July 1963 introduces a series of discriminations based not only on residence but also on *** (Institut du Sacré-Coeur at Heverlee), language, belonging to a national or linguistic minority, nationality and profession. The Antwerp and Ghent Applicants (Applications Nos. 1691/62 and 1769/63) likewise complain that they cannot send their children to the French classes in the Louvain urban area.
      The residence condition to which Section 7 § 3-B of the Act of 2nd August 1963 subordinates admission to French classes in the six communes enjoying "a special status" is likewise incompatible with the Convention and the Protocol. It is true that it in no way prejudices the signatories of Application No. 1677/62 since they live at Kraainem; the Commission and the Belgian Government have not failed to make this point. In fact these Applicants above all attack other aspects of the system applicable to Drogenbos, Kraainem, Linkebeek, Rhode-St. Genèse, Wemmel and Wezembeek-Oppem (cf. supra); nevertheless, they consider as abnormal a "strictly territorialist" provision which "prevents children living on the other side of the street, that happens to lie within the administrative area of another commune", from attending the schools in question. The Applicants from Alsemberg, Beersel, Antwerp, Ghent, Louvain and Vilvorde are more directly affected. Thus the son of one of the counsel representing the Applicants from Antwerp, Ghent and Vilvorde (Applications Nos. 1691/62, 1769/63 and 2126/64) lives at Tervueren, which is situated in the Dutch-language area but which is contiguous with Wezembeek-Oppem; the entry into force of the Act of 2nd August 1963 obliged him to withdraw his children from a French school at Wezembeek-Oppem, situated 150 metres from his home, and to send them every day to Brussels, about a dozen kilometres away. The Applicants consider that in this respect they are victims of violations of Article 2 of the Protocol (P1-2) and Articles 8 and 14 (art. 8, art. 14) of the Convention, and in particular of a discrimination based on residence.
      In the case of Louvain as in that of the six communes on the outskirts of Brussels, the discriminations denounced by the Applicants are not based on "financial or administrative" reasons; they reflect a will to enshrine the "rights of the ground" to the detriment of individual freedoms and to "liquidate the French-speaking minorities" by compelling them to "become flemicised" or to "move away".
      3. Arguments presented before the Court by the Belgian Government and by the Commission
    3. The Belgian Government maintains that the legislation in dispute in no way conflicts, on the two points under consideration, with the requirements of the three Articles (P1-2, art. 8, art. 14) invoked by the Applicants. While its principal argument was that the Articles were totally inapplicable (cf. supra), it presents several subsidiary arguments. It emphasises, in substance, that Section 7 in fine of the Act of 30th July 1963 and Section 7 § 3-B of the Act of 2nd August 1963 depart from the territorial principle only for very special reasons: namely to respond to the "needs of the bilingual University of Louvain in the matter of teacher's training" and to provide in the six communes assigned "a special status", certain facilities for the "fairly large French-speaking minority" which exists there. These justifications explain at the same time the restrictions to which the exceptions are subject. Why should the legislature permit the "concessions" made to French-speaking persons at Louvain and in the communes on the outskirts of Brussels to become "the starting point for francisation of the Flemish populations in these and neighbouring communes", when its "avowable" and "legitimate" purpose consists precisely in ensuring in Flanders the formation of Dutch-speaking élites? The problems that arise in this matter are "problems of degree" and "how far those exceptions should be extended is a question not of law but of policy". The opinion of the Commission is somewhat "illogical and paradoxical" as the violation found by the majority "would disappear if the Belgian State simply withdrew the concessions" mentioned above.
    4. Confirming before the Court the opinion expressed in its Report, the Commission begins by observing that Article 2 of the Protocol (P1-2), taken in isolation, "does not oblige the Belgian State to admit the Applicants' children to French schools - official or private - exceptionally or temporarily organised or maintained in the Flemish region": being "free either to establish or subsidise schools or to refrain from doing so", the State may "regulate admission to such schools as it sees fit". Two members of the Commission reach the same conclusion by different reasoning while three others consider it "incompatible with the first sentence of Article 2 (P1-2) (...) that the Belgian State should not allow French-speaking persons resident either in the unilingual Flemish region or in the area of the Brussels linguistic boundary to send their children to French schools in the vicinity". The Commission draws the Court's attention to these various individual opinions.
      Although "the exclusion of the Applicants' children" does not seem to it to be founded "on technical or administrative considerations", the Commission does not, even so, consider that "this constitutes a violation of Article 8 (art. 8) of the Convention": if "the State, in spite of the compulsory schooling it had introduced, is not bound by the Convention to provide French education for French-speaking persons" in Flanders, "it follows that (...) it is not bound to open existing French schools to them or to subsidise French schools" which would admit "the Applicants' children under conditions not laid down by the linguistic legislation".
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