"RELATING TO CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE LAWS ON THE USE OF LANGUAGES 87 IN EDUCATION IN BELGIUM" v. BELGIUM (MERITS) JUDGMENT COLLECTIVE DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGES HOLMBÄCK, RODENBOURG, ROSS, WIARDA AND MAST the objective pursued in this case by the laws attacked is contrary to the letter or the spirit of the Convention. Besides, the Court in its reply to the first question has affirmed that the purpose of the "legal measures which have been attacked ... is to achieve linguistic unity within the two large regions of Belgium in which a large majority of the population speaks only one of the two national languages" and that "in other words (the legislation) tends to prevent, in the Dutch unilingual region, the establishment or maintenance of schools which teach only in French". The Court holds that "such a measure cannot be considered arbitrary", that "to begin with it is based on the objective element which the region constitutes" and that "it is based on a public interest, namely to ensure that all schools dependent on the State and existing in a unilingual region, conduct their teaching in the language which is essentially that of the region". II. The distinction in treatment challenged is based on objective FEATURES It may be assumed that the French-speaking persons, to whose cost the balance which a non-discriminatory measure implies is said to have been disturbed, live in communes situated in Dutch unilingual territory adjacent to the communes "with special facilities". Their system is that of all the French-speaking persons living in that part of Belgium. The alleged lack of objectivity constituting a discrimination is based on an ambiguity in the appreciation of the situation in which they are placed because they live in the Dutch unilingual region near to the commune "with special facilities". One is moved by the fact that they must, if they wish their children to be educated in French, send them to a school in Brussels which is further from their home than the French-language school in the commune "with special facilities" near to where they live. To deduce from this that the imposition upon them of this difficulty or inconvenience amounts to a discrimination, is to misunderstand the significance of that objective factor which is the frontier which separates the communes with special facilities from the Dutch unilingual communes. This frontier is an objective and necessary factor, inherent in the nature of the relationship between the system of common law and that which constitutes an exception to it. Any derogation from a system of common law, whatever it may be, has by its very nature effects which may seem arbitrary but which are only apparently so. The minor has full capacity only on the day on which he attains his majority; he does not have it the day before. It would however be