PART TWO: CONTENT OF COMPREHENSIVE ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LAW PART TWO – I At the regional level, “segregation” has been defined by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance as: “the act by which a (natural or legal) person separates other persons on the basis of one of the enumerated grounds without an objective and reasonable justification”.336 In Mental Disability Advocacy Center (MDAC) v. Belgium, the European Committee of Social Rights held that article 15 (1) of the revised European Social Charter requires “an effective remedy” for those found to have been “unlawfully excluded or segregated” in education.337 Segregation is also an explicitly proscribed act under various instruments of the Inter-American System. For instance, article 7 of the Inter-American Convention on Protecting the Human Rights of Older Persons requires States to ensure that “older persons progressively have access to a range of in-home, residential, and other community-support services, including personal assistance necessary to support living and inclusion in the community and to prevent their isolation or segregation from the community”. Recitals to the Inter-American Convention against Racism, Racial Discrimination and Related Forms of Intolerance and to the Inter-American Convention against All Forms of Discrimination and Intolerance state that “the individual and collective experience of discrimination and intolerance must be taken into account to combat segregation and marginalization” based on various protected grounds. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has also expressed concern regarding the segregation of transgender persons in prisons and immigration detention centres, as well as on grounds of disability.338 The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has called for an end to gender-based segregation in the context of schooling and vocational training.339 RACIAL SEGREGATION OF ROMA The racial segregation of Roma, in particular in the fields of education, employment, health care, housing and spatial planning, has been a particular focus of European and international human rights bodies for the past three decades. In its general recommendation No. 27 (2000), the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination urged an end to segregation of Roma, in particular in the areas of education and housing. In the case of L.R. et al. v. Slovak Republic, the actions of the municipality of Dobšiná were challenged before the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Specifically, the municipality had taken a decision to build social housing for local Roma who were living in extremely substandard slum conditions on the edge of town. After a petition by approximately 2,700 local non-Roma inhabitants against the plan, the municipality reversed its decision and decided not to build the social housing. The Committee ruled that Slovakia had violated multiple provisions of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, including as concerns discrimination in housing and the right to an effective remedy.340 In the case of Koptova v. Slovakia, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination ruled that banning entry to Roma into several municipalities violated provisions of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.341 The segregation of Roma in education has been a matter of extensive litigation in recent years, with major judgments in national courts, as well as at the European Court of Human Rights, in cases concerning Bulgaria, Czechia, Greece, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. The first landmark judgment, delivered in 2007, D.H. and others v. the Czech Republic,342 concerned a State policy to segregate Roma children by 336 Council of Europe, European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, general policy recommendation No. 7 on national legislation to combat racism and racial discrimination (CRI(2003)8 Rev.), 2002, para. 16. 337 European Committee of Social Rights, Mental Disability Advocacy Center (MDAC) v. Belgium, Complaint No. 109/2014, Decision, 16 October 2017, para. 84. 338 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, “IACHR expresses concern about violence and discrimination against LGBT persons deprived of liberty”, Press Release No. 053/15, 21 May 2015. Available at www.oas.org/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2015/053.asp. 339 African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, “Joint Statement on the International Day of the Girl Child”, 11 October 2013. Available at www.achpr.org/pressrelease/detail?id=242. See also African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, general comment on article 30 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, 2013, para. 28: “Punishment by close confinement or segregation should not be applied to pregnant women, women with infants and breastfeeding mothers in prison.” 340 Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, L.R. et al. v. Slovak Republic, communication No. 31/2003. 341 Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Koptova v. Slovak Republic, communication No. 13/1998. 342 European Court of Human Rights, D.H. and others v. the Czech Republic, Application No. 57325/00, Judgment, 13 November 2007. 45