CATAN AND OTHERS v. MOLDOVA AND RUSSIA JUDGMENT 45 A. The parties’ submissions 1. The applicants 125. The applicants submitted that the Court should take the opportunity to develop its jurisprudence under Article 2 of Protocol No. 1, having regard to international standards on the right to education. For example, Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 13 § 1 of the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Article 29 § 1(a) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child all provided that education should be directed to the “full development of the human personality”. The Court had already recognised the importance of education for a child’s development, with reference to these instruments: Timishev v. Russia, nos. 55762/00 and 55974/00, § 64, ECHR 2005-XII). In the applicants’ submission, a further aim of education was to enable children to function and participate in society, as children and in the future as adults. Education which failed to achieve these aims could hinder a child’s access to opportunities and his or her ability to escape poverty and enjoy other human rights. In the applicants’ submission, the use of language was inherently linked to these educational priorities. 126. The applicants submitted that the main incidents on which they relied took place between 2002 and 2004, when the schools were forced to close down and reopen in different premises. They provided affidavits explaining how the “MRT” action against the schools had affected them individually. In the summer of 2004, the schools were closed and premises besieged and subsequently stormed by “MRT” police. Teachers were arrested and detained and Latin script materials were seized and destroyed. Some parents lost their jobs because of their decision to send their children to Moldovan language schools. 127. The applicants emphasised that there had been no significant change to their situations since then. The law banning the Latin script remained in force and teaching in Moldovan/Romanian carried a risk of harassment and criminal prosecution. Following the events of 2002 and 2004, many parents abandoned the struggle to have their children educated in Moldovan/Romanian. Those that persisted had to accept that the quality of the education would be affected by lack of adequate premises, long journeys to and from school, shortage of materials, no access to extracurricular activities and on-going harassment, vandalism of school premises, intimidation and verbal abuse. The alternative offered by the “MRT” authorities to Moldovan/Romanian speakers was education in “Moldavian” (Moldovan/Romanian written with the Cyrillic script). However, since this language was not recognised anywhere outside Transdniestria, and was not even used by the “MRT” administration, the