Young prisoner's right to education

Mr Christian Epistatu was sent to prison for murder. We are not told his age but because he had not yet completed high school we can infer that he must have been a minor or very young adolescent. He complained that he was forced to abandon his last year of high school in order to serve the prison sentence and was not allowed to complete his last year of high school in prison. He alleged this was a breach of Article 2 of the First Protocol ECHR. At the time of incarceration Mr Epistatu had completed eleven years of high school and was doing the twelfth year which would train him to become a skilled worker in the food industry. The government argued that Mr Epistatu had completed ten years’ education which are compulsory in Romania and therefore the essence of his right to education was not impaired.

The European Court held his complaint inadmissible because manifestly ill-founded. It held: “The fact that applicants were only prevented from continuing in full-time education during the period corresponding to their lawful detention after conviction by a court cannot be construed as a deprivation of the right to education within the meaning of Article 2 of Protocol No.1 to the Convention” (§ 62). And the Court held: “the said Convention provision cannot be understood as imposing an obligation on the prison authorities to set up ad hoc courses for applicants” (§ 63). Also “the Court notes that during his detention the applicant was allowed to enrol in and attended several sporting, artistic, religious and literary competitions, as well as attending a number of training and educational programmes in prison. Furthermore, it appears that as soon as the prison authorities provided courses or training programmes fitting the applicant’s requests and educational profile he was allowed to enrol and was not prevented from attending.” (§ 65).

This decision makes painfully apparent that the right to education is not well protected in the ECHR. The complaint was brought under Article 2 of the First Protocol, which provides: “No one shall be denied the right to education”, which, being framed in the negative, is unsuited to support a claim to provision of education, as in this case. Closer to the issue in this case is the acknowledgment in Article 13 of the International Covenant on Social and Economic Rights, by which States Parties acknowledge that education “shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignity”. What is missing in Mr Epistatu’s case is a consideration of his heightened need for education to help him to reintegrate into society. Having committed a very serious crime at a very young age, he was more in need than most of an education adjusted to his needs. It is disturbing that the Court on the contrary held that the fact of incarceration exonerated the State from providing an education adjusted to his needs.