The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the placement of two Hungarian children of Roma origin in schools for the mentally disabled was a violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 (right to education) read in conjunction with Article 14 (prohibition on discrimination) of the European Convention on Human Rights. The judgment is not yet final, and the parties can appeal within three months of the judgment.
The applicants are Hungarian nationals of Roma origin. Between 2000 and 2001, both applicants were placed in remedial schools for the mentally disabled based on the recommendation of an expert panel. The expert panel tested both boys using various IQ testing methods, revealing disparate results depending on the test administered. In 2005, both were tested by independent experts, who found that neither of them was mentally disabled and that both were capable of being educated in a school with a normal curriculum.
The applicants jointly filed a claim for damages with the regional court in 2006 against the testing panel, the local county council, and the remedial school, alleging a violation of the principle of equal treatment under the Hungarian Civil Code and the Act on Public Education. They claimed that the expert panel's decisions were discriminatory on the basis of their ethnicity, that there were systematic errors in the diagnostic system itself leading to the disproportionate diagnosis of Roma children, and that the parents had been excluded from the testing process in violation of applicable rules. The regional court found that the applicants' rights had been violated and ordered damages of 1,000,000 Hungarian forints to be paid to each applicant.
The appeals court reversed the regional court's ruling, finding that the placement of the children in remedial schools did not have any connection to their ethnic origin. The Supreme Court upheld the appeals court decision with regard to the discrimination claim, but noted that the "systematic errors" complained of may give rise to a human rights claim in the European Court of Human Rights.
In 2011, the applicants filed a claim with the European Court under Article 2 of Protocol 1 and Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In its decision in favor of the applicants, the Court noted that "[s]cholarly literature suggests that the systematic misdiagnosis of Roma children as mentally disabled has been a tool to segregate Roma children from non-Roma children in the public school system since at least the 1970s," and that Roma children in Hungary are classified as "disabled" in significantly higher proportions than non-Roma children. The government did not dispute these figures or provide alternate statistical data. The Court concluded that the segregation amounted to indirect discrimination, and the government therefore had to prove that the difference in treatment had no disproportionately prejudicial effects. While the Court accepted the government's reasoning that the establishment of the special schools was motivated by an intention to assist children with special needs, the state "failed to prove that it has provided guarantees needed to avoid the misdiagnosis and misplacement of the Roma applicants." The Court therefore found that the applicants suffered discriminatory treatment and that a violation of Article 14 of the Convention taken in conjunction with Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 had occurred. As the applicants had not made damage claims, the Court ordered the Hungarian government to pay 4,500 Euros jointly to the applicants for costs.
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