Information Note on the Court’s case-law 193
February 2016
Çam v. Turkey - 51500/08
Judgment 23.2.2016 [Section II]
Article 14
Discrimination
Refusal by academy of music to enrol blind person despite her having passed competitive entrance examination: violation
Facts – The applicant, who was blind, passed the entrance examination for a music academy after having successfully taken the practical tests for mastery of the Turkish lute. According to a report drawn up by a medical board and transmitted to the music academy, she could attend lessons in the sections of the academy where eyesight was not required. At the request of the director of the music academy, the report was amended to mention the fact that the applicant “could not receive education or training”. The academy rejected the applicant’s request for enrolment. Her appeal against that decision was dismissed by the domestic courts. The applicant submitted to the European Court that the rejection of her request for enrolment in the music academy had been discriminatory because it had been based on her blindness.
Law – Article 14 in conjunction with Article 2 of Protocol No. 1: The fact that the academy in question primarily provided teaching in the artistic field did not justify precluding from the scope of Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 scrutiny of the criteria for acceding to that institution.
Various legislative provisions in force at the material time enshrined the right of children with disabilities to education without discrimination. Therefore, the origin of the applicant’s exclusion from education in the music academy lay not in the legislation but in the academy’s rules, which required all applicants for enrolment to provide a medical certificate of physical ability. The Court could not overlook the effects of such a requirement on persons like the applicant with a physical disability. Noting the ease with which the music academy had secured a revision of the medical report provided by the applicant, there could be no doubt that her blindness had been the sole reason for refusing to enrol her. At any event the applicant would have been unable to meet the physical ability requirement, as the definition of the latter had been left to the academy’s discretion.
Although the domestic authorities undeniably enjoyed a margin of discretion in defining the skills required of applicants to music academies, that argument did not apply to the present case. By passing the entrance examination before requesting enrolment, the applicant had demonstrated that she was fully qualified for such enrolment.
As regards the alleged lack of appropriate infrastructures to accommodate students with disabilities, Article 14 of the Convention had to be read in the light of such international instruments as the European Social Charter and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, as regards the reasonable accommodation which persons with disabilities were entitled to expect.
All children had their own specific educational needs, and this applied particularly to children with disabilities. In the educational sphere, reasonable accommodation could take a variety of forms, whether physical, non-physical, educational or organisational, or in terms of the architectural accessibility of schools and colleges, teacher training, curricular adaptation or the provision of appropriate amenities. However it was not the Court’s task to define the manner and means of meeting the educational needs of children with disabilities, because the national authorities, who by reason of their direct and continuous contact with the vital forces of their countries were in principle better placed than an international court to evaluate local needs and conditions in this area.
Nevertheless, the Court considered it important for States to take special care in making their choices in this field because of the impact such choices have on children with disabilities, whose particular vulnerability cannot be overlooked. The Court consequently held that discrimination based on disability extended to any refusal to provide reasonable accommodation.
In the present case the competent national authorities made no effort to identify the applicant’s needs and failed to explain how or why her blindness could impede her access to musical education. Nor did they attempt to consider new amenities to meet the specific educational needs arising from the applicant’s blindness. The music academy had never made any attempt since 1976 to adjust its educational approach in order to make it accessible to blind students. Therefore the applicant had been denied, without objective and reasonable justification, the benefit of education in the music academy solely on account of her visual disability.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41: EUR 10,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage; claim in respect of pecuniary damage dismissed.
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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