92 "RELATING TO CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE LAWS ON THE USE OF LANGUAGES 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 INDIVIDUAL OPINION, PARTLY DISSENTING (POINT I OF THE OPERATIVE PROVISIONS OF THE JUDGMENT), OF JUDGE G. MARIDAKIS (Translation) 1. In 1830, when she gained her independence, Belgium consisted of two de facto zones, the Flemish and the Walloon. The Walloons spoke French and the Flemings Dutch. The higher civil service spoke French. All judicial business was transacted in French. As far as education was concerned there were no special problems in the Walloon area. In the Flemish region primary education was given in Dutch, secondary education was bilingual and university education was entirely in French. In the years 1900-1930 a "Flemish separatist movement" came into being. Then came the 1932 legislation. This placed the two languages on an equal footing and adopted the territorialist solution. The 1932 Acts did not fix the language boundary immutably: the boundary could change as a result of the decennial language censuses. The last such census was held in 1947, and the results, which were published in 1954, showed that the Flemish were advancing demographically and the Walloons geographically. 2. Under the 1963 Acts the national territory is divided into four linguistic regions, the Flemish, French and German regions and that of the Brussels conurbation. In the first three regions the Acts require the exclusive use of Flemish, French and German respectively. Under the 1963 Acts, unlike those of 1932, each linguistic region has stable boundaries drawn in such a way as to give preponderance in the region to one language. The immutability of the language boundary and territorial unilingualism are the foundations on which the 1963 Acts are based. It is clearly with the intention of strengthening these foundations that under the Acts: (1) Transmutation classes are abolished. (2) The Belgian State refuses in the unilingual regions to establish State schools or subsidise private schools in which instruction is given in a language other than that of the region. (3) The State refuses to subsidise schools which give instruction in nonsubsidised classes in a language other than that of the region. (4) The State refuses to homologate leaving certificates issued by schools that do not conform to the language legislation. (5) The State makes special arrangements for the bilingual communes on the outskirts of Brussels.