D.H. and others V. the Czech Republic (Application No. 57325/00)
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued its landmark judgment in the case of D.H. and Others v. Czech Republic (“D.H.”) on November 13, 2007. More than a decade since the judgment and three years after the new legislation was put in place in September 2016, the Czech authorities still fail to abolish systemic discrimination of Roma children in education.
In June 2018, the Committee of Ministers (CoM) expressed “their strong expectation that with the upcoming school years the reform will become more and more embedded and that, with each passing year, fewer children will be assigned to reduced education programmes, so that the share of Roma children educated outside the mainstream will continue to decrease.” The data published by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports for the school year 2018/2019 does not demonstrate any significant drop in placing Roma pupils into reduced educational programmes. What the data reveals is an increase in the proportion of Roma pupils taught according to the educational programme for special primary schools for pupils with moderate and severe mental disability.