North Macedonia Romani Children Education Case
What was at stake
Supreme Court ruled in favour of ERRC on discrimination against Romani children in juvenile detention education. First actio popularis judgment in North Macedonia.
What happened
Romani children held in the Tetovo Correctional Home in North Macedonia were denied formal education from 2015 to 2020. A collective complaint filed by the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) revealed that the juvenile correction system failed to provide equal access to education, which constituted direct discrimination by status and indirect discrimination against Romani children based on ethnicity, hindering their future opportunities.
What the court decided
On 21 February 2024 the Supreme Court of North Macedonia held that the state's juvenile correctional system discriminated against Romani children by failing to provide formal education at the Tetovo Correctional Home, finding both direct and indirect discrimination on the basis of ethnicity. The court remitted the case to the Court of Appeal for a detailed judgment, in what was reported as the first Macedonian Supreme Court ruling to analyse indirect discrimination in an actio popularis collective complaint.
How the court got there
The Supreme Court accepted the ERRC's revision, concluding that the state's failure to provide formal education for children in the correctional system constituted discrimination. The Court provided the first-ever analysis of indirect discrimination in an actio popularis collective complaint, defining it by the disproportionate biased effects of a seemingly neutral policy on a specific group. The case was remitted to the Court of Appeal for a detailed judgment based on this analysis.
Categories
Authoritative link
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