"RELATING TO CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE LAWS ON THE USE OF LANGUAGES IN EDUCATION IN BELGIUM" v. BELGIUM (MERITS) JUDGMENT 23 Protocol (P1-1, P1-2, P1-3), for it does no more than prohibit any discrimination in the enjoyment of these rights and freedoms. Article 14 (art. 14) is not, therefore, either separately or in conjunction with other Articles of the Convention or the Protocol, the source of any rights not enshrined in the Convention and the Protocol; equally it does not transform the negative obligations resulting from these instruments into duties to provide something. In reality its function is to determine the exact sphere of Application ratione personae of the rights and freedoms safeguarded. Consequently, a breach of Article 14 (art. 14) is inconceivable without a simultaneous violation of an Article protecting a right or freedom unless that Article imposes positive obligations. However, the Articles invoked by the Applicants in conjunction with Article 14 - Article 8 (art. 14+8) of the Convention and Article 2 of the Protocol (art. 14P1-2) - give rise purely to obligations of non-interference. After the judgment of 9th February 1967, the Belgian Government completed and slightly modified its argument on the point in question. In its opinion, the first decisions of the Commission seemed to indicate that Article 14 (art. 14) "served no practical legal purpose and that its presence in the Convention was purely psychological in intention". More recently the Commission has sought to "reconcile two at first sight incompatible principles, firstly that Article 14 (art. 14) should serve a practical legal purpose", and secondly that it "relates only to the rights and freedoms safeguarded". The Belgian Government does not dispute "the merits" of such an "attempted legal analysis"; however, the solution adopted by the Commission does not seem to it to "pay sufficient regard to the second principle". For in its opinion "the practical effect of Article 14 (art. 14)" is limited to two cases: "where the provisions of the Convention and Protocol place on the High Contracting Parties positive obligations, compliance with which necessitates action by the authorities of these States" (e.g. Article 6 (art. 6) of the Convention and Article 3 of the Protocol (P1-3)) and where they create "negative or self-executing obligations" but "exceptionally allow" the States to "derogate from these obligations in certain circumstances" (e.g. Articles 2-5 of the Convention (art. 2, art. 3, art. 4, art. 5) and paragraph 2 of Articles 8-11 (art. 8-2, art. 92, art. 10-2, art. 11-2)). This does not hold good in a third situation, that of an Article which "places on States a mere duty to refrain from action but contains no general stipulation concerning exceptions or derogations" (e.g. Article 2 of the Protocol) (P1-2). Article 14 (art. 14) does not apply to "positive benefits" and "favours" that a State may, without being bound to do so by the Convention, "grant" in order to "facilitate the exercise" of a freedom safeguarded by an Article of this kind: to accept the contrary view is to "turn a negative obligation into a positive one", "in certain circumstances", an act which is in no way authorised by the Convention and the Protocol.