"RELATING TO CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE LAWS ON THE USE OF LANGUAGES IN EDUCATION IN BELGIUM" v. BELGIUM (MERITS) JUDGMENT 29 and the respect due to fundamental human rights while attaching particular importance to the latter. 6. The second sentence of Article 2 of the Protocol (P1-2) does not guarantee a right to education; this is clearly shown by its wording: "... In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions." This provision does not require of States that they should, in the sphere of education or teaching, respect parents’ linguistic preferences, but only their religious and philosophical convictions. To interpret the terms "religious" and "philosophical" as covering linguistic preferences would amount to a distortion of their ordinary and usual meaning and to read into the Convention something which is not there. Moreover the "preparatory work" confirms that the object of the second sentence of Article 2 (P1-2) was in no way to secure respect by the State of a right for parents to have education conducted in a language other than that of the country in question; indeed in June 1951 the Committee of Experts which had the task of drafting the Protocol set aside a proposal put forward in this sense. Several members of the Committee believed that it concerned an aspect of the problem of ethnic minorities and that it consequently fell outside the scope of the Convention (see Doc. CM (51) 33 final, page 3). The second sentence of Article 2 (P1-2) is therefore irrelevant to the problems raised in the present case. 7. According to the express terms of Article 8 (1) (art. 8-1) of the Convention, "everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence". This provision by itself in no way guarantees either a right to education or a personal right of parents relating to the education of their children: its object is essentially that of protecting the individual against arbitrary interference by the public authorities in his private family life. However, it is not to be excluded that measures taken in the field of education may affect the right to respect for private and family life or derogate from it; this would be the case, for instance, if their aim or result were to disturb private or family life in an unjustifiable manner, inter alia by separating children from their parents in an arbitrary way. As the Court has already emphasised, the Convention must be read as a whole. Consequently a matter specifically dealt with by one of its provisions may also, in some of its aspects, be regulated by other provisions of the Convention. The Court will therefore examine the facts of the case in the light of the first sentence of Article 2 of the Protocol (P1-2) as well as of Article 8 (art. 8) of the Convention.