54 "RELATING TO CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE LAWS ON THE USE OF LANGUAGES IN EDUCATION IN BELGIUM" v. BELGIUM (MERITS) JUDGMENT Convention. In the Greater Brussels district, "the language of instruction is" in principle "Dutch or French, according to the maternal or usual language of the child" (Section 5 of the Act of 30th July 1963). However, the system of the maternal or usual language does not secure to parents a complete freedom of choice: the declaration of the head of the family must be "a statement of fact" not "the expression of a wish", and the language inspectorate verifies its accuracy (Sections 17 and 18 of the Act of 30th July 1963). This control, which the Applicants consider to be "of an odious nature" in itself, in addition opens the door to "arbitrary" decisions, more especially as the maternal language may differ from the usual language and as there exist many bilingual homes. As to the appeals available under the Acts of 30th July 1963 (Section 18) and 23rd December 1946 (Conseil d’État), they do not have a suspensive effect and, moreover, cannot correct the fundamental defect in the system criticised. The complaints of the Applicants, however, are principally directed against the fourth paragraph of Section 17 of the Act of 30th July 1963, which concerns the particular situation of parents wishing to send their children to school in the Greater Brussels district but whose homes are outside the district. This paragraph introduces a further obstacle to the exercise of the Applicants’ freedom of choice: if they send their children to be educated in the capital, the language of instruction will normally be that of the region where they live, in this case Dutch. Of course the head of the family may make a declaration to the contrary but he will have to obtain, under the conditions described above, the agreement of the language inspectorate. To rebut the "legal presumption" embodied in the fourth paragraph of Section 17, he must provide a "counter proof" "a distinctly discriminatory procedure" in the view of the Applicants. "In doubtful or complex cases", which are no unusual thing in Belgium, the presumption will prevail. For children leaving a nursery school situated in the unilingual Flemish area, sending them to Brussels constitutes an even more precarious solution by reason of the second and third paragraphs. In short, Section 17 tends to deprive the head of the family "even at the price of dislocating his home", "of the elementary right to have his flesh and blood resemble him intellectually". The signatories of Application No. 2126/64 nevertheless observe that "1253 children from Vilvorde attend French schools in Brussels or Wallonia". For the transport of children from the age of three up to nine or 10 years they have hired coaches; furthermore they have established a rota system to supervise the children’s mounting at the various departure points and dismounting at the arrival points. Other Applicants seem to have adopted the same solution.