Source: http://ukscblog.com/the-right-to-education-and-the-supreme-court/comment-page-1/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 10:43:28+00:00

Document:
As Brian Simpson explains in his Human Rights and the end of empire: Britain and the genesis of European Convention (Oxford, 2001), Chapter 15, the First Protocol to the European Convention – which sets out in its three articles, respectively, the right to property, the right to education and the duty to maintain democratic institutions (subsequently read by the European Court of Human Rights as containing a subjective right to vote) – exists as a Protocol outside the main text of the Convention because no consensus could initially be reached about the recognition of these claims as being fundamental rights. The right to property, to education and to vote were considered “problematic” by the remaining post-WWII colonial European powers (Britain, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Portugal). They were concerned about the possible impact of the acceptance of these rights on their rule over their remaining overseas territories.
“[i] No person shall be denied the right to education.
And the UK’s reservation thereto states that “the principle affirmed in the second sentence of Article 2 is accepted by the United Kingdom only so far as compatible with the provision of efficient instruction and training and the avoidance of unreasonable public expenditure”. It may be noted that, by implication, the United Kingdom accepts unreservedly the principle that “no person shall be denied the right to education” set out in the first sentence of Article 2 Protocol 1.
33. …. [T]he education of children is the whole process whereby, in any society, adults endeavour to transmit their beliefs, culture and other values to the young, whereas teaching or instruction refers in particular to the transmission of knowledge and to intellectual development …. [and] the process whereby a school seeks to achieve the object for which it was established, including the development and moulding of the character and mental powers of its pupils.
40. … Article 2 (P1-2) constitutes a whole that is dominated by its first sentence, the right set out in the second sentence being an adjunct of the fundamental right to education. ….[T]here is also a substantial difference between the legal basis of the two claims, for one concerns a right of a parent and the other a right of a child. The issue arising under the first sentence is therefore not absorbed by the finding of a violation of the second.
154. [A] limitation will only be compatible with Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 if there is a reasonable relationship of proportionality between the means employed and the aim sought to be achieved.
“[I]n its recent case-law the Court, leaving the door open for the application of Article 6 to the right to education, has consistently examined whether proceedings concerning the regulations on higher education conform to the requirements of Article 6 § 1 (see, by way of example, Mürsel Eren v. Turkey (dec.), no. 60856/00, 6 June 2002; D.H. and Others v. the Czech Republic (dec.), no. 57325/00, 1 March 2005; and Tig v. Turkey (dec.), no. 8165/03, 24 May 2005).
In case law emanating from the Court since about 2006 there has been an undoubted firming up of the approach to the Article 2 Protocol 1 right to an education as an individual subjective or personal right, rather than simply a general aspiration or aim in public law. This subjective right can now successfully be prayed in aid to challenge the Convention compatibility of individual expulsion or suspension decisions from particular educational institutions, or may be relied upon to test the quality of such education is being provided to individuals. Thus, in Eren v Turkey (2007) 44 EHRR 28 the Court held that if the State fails to ensure to an individual “effective access to such educational facilities as the state provides for such pupils” this may constitute a breach of Article 2 Protocol 1: whether (as in Timishev v Russia (2007) 44 EHRR 37) such exclusion from the education system is a result of an act which is unlawful in domestic law; or (as in DH v Czech Republic (2008) 47 EHRR 3 Grand Chamber)) results from the application of an ex facie valid and lawful domestic policy regarding the placement of children in special school which, however, resulted in Roma children being isolated from pupils from the wider population and educated to a more basic curriculum than was followed than in ordinary schools, resulting in their receiving “an education which compounded their difficulties and compromised their subsequent personal development instead of tackling their real problems” (see similarly Oršuš and Others v. Croatia Judgment of 16 March 2010, Grand Chamber).
In the particular circumstances of the case and for the reasons stated above, the Court considers that the imposition of such a disciplinary sanction cannot be considered as reasonable or proportionate. Although, it notes that these sanctions were subsequently annulled by the administrative courts on grounds of unlawfulness, regrettably by that time the applicants had already missed one or two terms of their studies and, thus, the outcome of the domestic proceedings failed to redress the applicants’ grievances under this head.
What this decision also shows is that the Convention jurisprudence on the right to education has developed in line with the approach to the Convention as a “living instrument” so that it can no longer properly be said – as appeared to be the position in 1989 in the Commission decision in the case of Simpson v United Kingdom (1989) 64 DR 188 – either that the Convention does not guarantee access to any particular educational institution the domestic system does provide, or that a breach of Article 2 of the First Protocol of the ECHR requires evidence of a systemic failure of the national educational system as a whole resulting in the individual not having access to a minimum level of education within it.
Both the House of Lords decision in Ali v. Lord Grey’s School and the UKSC decision in JR 17 were concerned with the Convention right to education being relied upon in support of a just satisfaction damages claims in respect of suspension decisions from school. In both cases these courts were clearly concerned, as a matter of policy, to try to limit such damages claims and it is against that background that some of their observations on the extent of the relevant Convention rights may be understood. But it remains the case that if the court is properly to take account of the relevant Strasbourg case law, the claim which continues to be made that the Convention right to education under Article 2 of Protocol 1 ECHR is a “weak” right requiring access only to general education system in the State, rather than requiring the State authorities to allow or facilitate an individual’s access to any specific institution or education provision is simply not sustainable in the light of the more recent Strasbourg jurisprudence set out above.
There is the opportunity to the UK Supreme Court to reconsider its approach to, or understanding of, the Convention right to education in the light of the more recent Strasbourg case law in the decision which is awaited from it in the case of A v. Essex County Council. The judgment of the Court of Appeal was handed down on 16 April 2008 (A v. Essex County Council  EWCA Civ 364,  ELR 321) and the UK Supreme Court heard the appeal from this decision on 24 March 2010. The issue in the case is whether or not a failure to provide a disabled child with an effective education as a matter of law can constitute a breach of Article 2, Protocol 1 ECHR and therefore justify an award of damages. The appellant (A) is a child with special educational needs, suffering from severe autism, epilepsy and learning difficulties. He was excluded from school due to his propensity for violence and thereafter remained at home pending medical assessment. It took 19 months for the Respondent to make suitable alternative educational provision for him. A alleges that he was adversely affected as a result such as to infringe his rights under Arts 3, 8, 14 and Art 2 of Protocol 1 ECHR such as to give rise to an entitlement to just satisfaction damages. The Court of Appeal did not consider that the particular circumstances of enforced exclusion from schooling was such as to engage any of the Convention rights relied upon and so no liability for damages arose under the Human Rights Act.
Leave a reply on "“The Right to Education and the Supreme Court”"

References: § 1
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 UKSC 
 v. 
 v. 
 EWCA 
 Art 2