ECLJ Fighting for the Rights of Families to Homeschool Their Children According to Their Faith and Values

(Strasbourg, France)-As the United States had a long and painful road to the acceptance of the homeschooling movement in several American States, so to has the right to homeschool children according to one's religious and moral beliefs faced much resistance in several European nations. While many European countries have openly welcomed the right to home educate, the Russian federation even allowing for homeschooling in their Constitution, two nations in Europe still refuse to grant this right.

European Union law delegates educational decisions to the local countries. In German law, education is a state or land by land decision. Each of the German lands has a law forbidding homeschooling in any circumstances within the borders of Germany. This is even though the German government has an approved homeschooling curriculum for use by diplomats and foreign military service people when they are stationed abroad.

Several German families, having sincerely-held religious beliefs that they should control their children's education by educating them at home using the curriculum created for use by German diplomats abroad. They have been refused permission by the local school board, the local court, the State Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court of Germany which sits in Karlsruhe. Many of these families have been threatened with the relinquishment of their parental rights or fined beyond their means, and then imprisoned for not paying the fine.

ECLJ has filed an application to the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of one of these families. It is the belief of ECLJ that the right to educate one's family according to their morals and religious beliefs is enshrined in Protocol 1, Article 2 of the European Convention of Human Rights. The Article States: "No person shall be denied the right to education. In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religions and philosophical convictions."

In Slovakia, law No. 29/1984 Zb. with amendments (the school law), governs the issue of education. The last amendment to the law was Law No. 365/2004 which came into force on 01 July 2004. The essence of the law is that a child must be enrolled in a government accredited school facility from the age of 6 to 16 (§ 34). It is the duty of the parent to ensure that the child be enrolled and visit the school regularly and in a timely manner (§ 36). The only current exemption to the homeschooling law is verifiable mental or physical incapacity (§ 37).
Several Slovak families who homeschool their children were arrested and charged both civilly and with criminal child negligence for not having their children enrolled in public schools. ECLJ has been working with these families and their local attorney in an attempt to deem the law as contrary to the European Convention of Human Rights. The families are awaiting a response to their petition of the District Court of Banska Bystrica to have their case heard by the Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic.