ECHR Called Turkey to Remedy the Situation in Education System

• 02.18.2015, 17:49
•  Region,  World

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) announced its final judgment on an appeal, which assumed high school students to opt out of religious education classes, Hurriyet reports.

As humanrightseurope.org informs, in the case of Mansur Yalçın and Others vs Turkey (application no. 21163/11), the European Court of Human Rights unanimously held a judgment, that there had been:

a violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 (right to education) to the European Convention on Human Rights with regard to Mansur Yalçın, Yüksel Polat and Hasan Kılıç.

The Court decided that the Turkish education system does not ensure respect for parents’ convictions and thus it is considered to be a violation of the right of education. It called Turkey to "implement appropriate measures to remedy the situation without delay, in particular by introducing a system whereby pupils could be exempted from religion and ethics classes without their parents having to disclose their own religious or philosophical convictions." However, the Court rejected the appeal stating that the applicants did not indicate the specific effect of the religious curriculum on them. "They had simply complained in the abstract about the impact of the curriculum on their religious beliefs, without explaining how they had been personally affected."

In 2011, Mansur Yalçın, Yüksel Polat and Hasan Kılıç, the applicants, who are of Alevi faith, and their children were at secondary school, complained that the religious classes that are compulsory for everyone are based on the Sunni understanding of Islam. In September 2014, the Court decided that Turkey violated the right of education and called Turkey to remedy the situation without delay. However, the decision of the Chamber was not final. During the three-month period following its delivery, any party could request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the Court. If such a request was made, a panel of five judges would consider whether the case deserves further examination. Thus in December, 2014 Turkey appealed to the Grand Chamber for reviewing the case. This request, however, was rejected and already on February 17, 2015 final judgment was made.

Advisory opinions of the Grand Chamber of ECHR are not binding and the latter has no jurisdiction to annul domestic laws. It is the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe that supervises the execution of the Court's judgments. However, usually states comply with the Court’s judgments and also advisory opinions. In this regard it is assumed that Turkey will also comply with the calls of the ECHR and will make some changes in its education system. Otherwise if such kinds of appeals are submitted to ECHR, this case will be seen as a bad precedent, which in its turn will suppose stricter measures against Turkey.