Valiullina and others v. Latvia
The ECtHR’s most recent rulings on minority language educationwere delivered at the end of 2023 as a result of legislative amendments in Latvia: Valiullina and Others; Džibuti and Others. The controversial legislation was also discussed by a preliminary rulingof the Court of Justice of the European Unionin the context of universities.The legislative amendments in question were passed in 2018 and provide that the proportion of subjects to be taught in the State languagewas to be increased in public schools. Members of the Russian-speaking minority in Latvia complained that the provisions significantly restricted the use of their mother tongue, and that the high proportion of subjects to be taught in Latvian had disproportionately affected them.The Court confirmed its conclusions in the Belgian linguistic casethat Art. 2 of Protocol No. 1 to the ECHRdid not include the right to access education in a particular language; it only guaranteed the right to educationin (one of) the national/official language(s) of the country concerned. The Court has not expanded the scope of the right to education ever since. Given that Latvian was the only official language in Latvia, the applicants could not complain about the decreased use of Russian as the language of instruction per se. The Court also examined whether there was a violation of Art. 14 (prohibition of discrimination) in conjunction with Art. 2 of Protocol No. 1. In this regard, the Court stressed that the need to improve proficiency in a State language could be considered a legitimate aim, especially taking into account the historical context of the present case where the use of Latvian had been significantly restricted for more than fifty years during the unlawful occupation and annexation of Latvia by the Soviet regime.Furthermore, the applicants could not prove that the impugned legislative amendments would have had disproportionately prejudicial effects on them. In conclusion, there was no discrimination on the grounds of language.