Information Note on the Court’s case-law 18
May 2000
Jiménez Alonso and Jiménez Merino v. Spain (dec.) - 51188/99
Decision 25.5.2000 [Section IV]
Article 2 of Protocol No. 1
Respect for parents' religious convictions
Sex education lessons in State school allegedly infringing the parents’ convictions: inadmissible
During the 1996-97 school year the first applicant, then aged 13, the daughter of the second applicant, was a pupil in a public junior high school. The science syllabus included sex education lessons. A brochure published by the authorities was distributed to the pupils. The second applicant considered that the content of the brochure went beyond the strict framework of science teaching and offended her moral and religious beliefs. The first applicant, who did not attend the rest of the sex education lessons and declined to answer the questions on them in her end-of-year examination, was obliged to repeat the year. An administrative appeal lodged by the second applicant was dismissed. He then applied to the High Court of Justice with no more success. Lastly, a recurso de amparo to the Constitutional Court was likewise dismissed.
Inadmissible under Article 2 of Protocol No. 1: The content of the school curriculum was in principle a question for the Contracting States to decide. To a large extent the problem lay in deciding what was appropriate and different countries could legitimately adopt different solutions at different times. Nevertheless, it was not permissible for States to use teaching to pursue an aim of indoctrination which could be considered incompatible with parents’ religious and philosophical convictions. In the present case the sex education lessons complained of had been aimed at giving the pupils objective and scientific information about human sexual behaviour, sexually-transmitted diseases and AIDS. They were not a source of indoctrination in favour of a specific form of sexual behaviour. Moreover, they did not prevent parents from informing and advising their children, instructing and guiding them in a direction consistent with their own religious or philosophical convictions. Furthermore, the Spanish Constitution guaranteed natural and legal persons the right to set up schools in accordance with constitutional principles and the right of everyone to receive religious and moral instruction in accordance with his own beliefs. As provided by the Constitution, there was a large network of private schools in Spain which co-existed with the public education system run by the State. In the present case, the applicants had not mentioned any obstacle which had prevented the second applicant from attending such a school. As the parents had opted for the public education system, the right to respect for their beliefs and ideas as guaranteed by Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 could not be interpreted so as to confer on them the right to demand different lessons for their daughter in line with their own convictions: manifestly ill-founded.
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