"RELATING TO CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE LAWS ON THE USE OF LANGUAGES 93 IN EDUCATION IN BELGIUM" v. BELGIUM (MERITS) JUDGMENT INDIVIDUAL OPINION, PARTLY DISSENTING (POINT I OF THE OPERATIVE PROVISIONS OF THE JUDGMENT), OF JUDGE G. MARIDAKIS 3. The Applicants are French-speaking and live in predominantly Flemish-speaking areas. They complain in effect that the Belgian State: - does not provide any French education in the communes where they live or, in the case of Kraainem, provides it only within limits which they consider inadequate, - withholds grants from those schools in the communes in question that do not conform with the linguistic clauses of the school legislation, - refuses to homologate leaving certificates issued by such schools, - denies the Applicants’ children entry to the French classes existing in certain places, - thereby obliges the Applicants either to enrol their children in a local school - which they consider contrary to their aspirations – or to send them to school either in Greater Brussels, where instruction is given in Dutch or French depending on the child’s mother tongue or usual language, or in the "French-speaking region" (Wallonia). Such "scholastic emigration" is said to entail serious dangers and hardships. The Applicants allege violations of Articles 8 and 14 (art. 8, art. 14) of the Convention and Article 2 of the Protocol (P1-2). 4. Article 2 of the Protocol (P1-2) reads: "No person shall be denied the right to education. 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." The Applicants maintain that the term "religious and philosophical convictions" covers language. Philosophical convictions are said necessarily to include, inter alia, parents’ cultural and linguistic preferences, and it is considered inconceivable that a State that observes Article 2 (P1-2) should allow fathers to bring their children up in a particular religion or philosophy while denying them the choice of education in one of the national languages rather than the other. 5. In the sentence "No person shall be denied the right to education" the Contracting States intended to express a conviction common to all the peoples of Europe, namely that man, as a being gifted with reason (logos), has an innate desire for knowledge. ("All men naturally desire knowledge", Aristotle, The Metaphysics I.) Since knowledge is acquired by instruction, it necessarily follows that instruction, as a concomitant to reason, is coexistent with it and is an inalienable and intangible right of every man. ("No person shall be denied the right to education" is a directive (a legal standard or Richtliniennorm) which the State must follow "in the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching". As man’s innate desire for knowledge, and consequently for the instruction that leads to it, cannot be obstructed in any way, the Contracting States simply add that "in the exercise of any functions which it assumes in