12 "RELATING TO CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE LAWS ON THE USE OF LANGUAGES IN EDUCATION IN BELGIUM" v. BELGIUM (MERITS) JUDGMENT language; teaching of the second national language was to be compulsory (Sections 5, 6, 12, 13, 18, 19 and 22). The Act of 28th June 1932 on the use of languages in administrative matters, referred to in Section 21 of the Act of 14th July 1932, defined the Brussels urban area in Section 2 paragraph 5. Each head of family was required to make a declaration stating his children’s maternal or usual language in so far as that determined which system was applicable, but the correctness of the declaration might be subject to verification (Sections 7 and 20 of the Act of 14th July 1932). The Act of 14th July 1932 (Section 28), supplemented by Section 13 of an Act of 27th July 1955 and by Section 24 of an Act of 29th May 1959 ("schooling agreement"), introduced a penalty for non-observance of the Act: the refusal or withdrawal, as the case may be, of the school subsidies. Another penalty was introduced by the Act of 15th July 1932 on the conferring of academic degrees (cf. infra). The State refused to "homologate" leaving certificates issued by establishments which did not fully conform to the language laws on education. Pupils whose leaving certificates were not admissible for homologation could still obtain a legally recognised degree by taking an examination before the "Central Board". 13. Section 22 of the Act of 14th July 1932 laid down that "in every commune where the decennial census" establishes that "more than 20 % of the population habitually speaks a language other than that of the region, the teaching of this second language" may "begin in the second grade", "if the communes or the managers of adopted or adoptable schools" so "decide". For its part, the Act of 28th June 1932 on the use of languages in administrative matters provided in Section 3 (1) that: "Subject to the provisions of Section 2 with regard to the communes of the Brussels area, communes in which the last decennial census showed a majority of the inhabitants usually speaking a language different from that of the language group to which they are attached by virtue of Section 1 shall adopt the language of the said majority in their internal services and correspondence." After 1846, a general census of the population took place periodically in Belgium (Royal Decree of 30th June 1846, Act of 2nd June 1856, Royal Decree of 5th July 1866, Act of 25th May 1880); under a Ministerial Decree of 18th November 1880 its purpose was to ascertain not only the number, sex and age of the inhabitants of the Kingdom, but also their language. The last language census was in 1947. Although it revealed a certain percentage of French-speaking persons in the Flemish provinces (paragraph 349 of the Report), it also showed that the number of Flemish-speaking Belgians was increasing but that a large number of French-speaking Belgians had settled in the Flemish area, especially around Brussels. This dual tendency which seems to have become more marked since then provoked a serious reaction; the Walloons charged the Flemings with "demographic imperialism", and the Flemings charged the Walloons with