CEDH · CASELAW;COMMUNICATEDCASES;ENG — 13 janvier 2026

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .s379BC09C { margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .s5E1364CA { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14pt } .s339D85E6 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:14pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s665E407E { margin-top:66pt; margin-bottom:14pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s10950C61 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-indent:14.2pt; text-align:justify } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } Published on 2 February 2026   SECOND SECTION Application no. 5294/23 A.A. against North Macedonia lodged on 20 January 2023 communicated on 13 January 2026 SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE The application concerns the applicant’s lack of access to formal education during his placement in the Correctional Home for Juvenile Offenders Tetovo (hereinafter “the Tetovo Correctional Home”). The applicant was fourteen years old at the time of lodging of the application. He is illiterate and of Roma origin. On 1 June 2022 the Skopje Criminal Court of First Instance ordered that the applicant be placed in a correctional home for juvenile offenders for a minimum of one year and maximum of five. The applicant submits that he was placed in the Tetovo Correctional Home, where he remains to date. On 4 March 2020 the European Roma Rights Centre (“the ERRC”) lodged a civil public interest action ( actio popularis ) under the Law on Prevention of Discrimination against the Ministry of Justice – Department for Enforcement of Sanctions, the Ministry of Education and the Tetovo Correctional Home. It claimed that, due to the failure to provide formal elementary and secondary education (which are compulsory in the respondent State) in the period between 14 September 2015 and the day of the filing of the civil action, the authorities had breached the right to education of the children placed in the Tetovo Correctional Home. It also claimed that the authorities discriminated against the children placed in the Tetovo Correctional Home on grounds of personal status (as persons committed to the correctional home) and ethnicity (the Ombudsman reports for 2016 and 2019 showed that a significant part of the population in the Tetovo Correctional Home was of Roma origin). Lastly, ERRC sought a court order obliging the authorities to provide formal elementary and secondary education in the Tetovo Correctional Home. On 18 March 2022 the Skopje Civil Court of First Instance partly granted ERRC’s claim and found that in the period between 14 September 2015 and 4 March 2020 the authorities had discriminated against the children placed in the Tetovo Correctional Home by failing to provide elementary and secondary education on grounds of personal status. It also found that in the same period the authorities discriminated against the children of Roma origin placed in the Tetovo Correctional Home on grounds of ethnicity. The court ordered the authorities to provide formal elementary and secondary education to the children in the Tetovo Correctional Home as of 2022/23 academic year. Lastly, the court rejected as inadmissible ERRC’s claim of alleged violation of the right of education of the children placed in the Tetovo Correctional Home finding that it lacked competence ratione materiae to examine it. On 1 September 2022 the Skopje Court of Appeal granted the defendants’ appeals and overturned the first-instance judgment, dismissing the ERRC’s claim in full. On 21 February 2024 that judgment was quashed by the Supreme Court, acting on an appeal of points of law lodged by the ERRC, and the case was remitted to the Skopje Court of Appeal. On 9 May 2024 the Skopje Court of Appeal upheld the first-instance judgment in the part in which the ERRC’s claim had been granted and overturned it in the part regarding the costs of the proceedings. The applicant complains, under Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention taken alone and in conjunction with Article 14 of the Convention, as well as under Article 1 of Protocol No. 12 thereto, that he has no access to formal education in the Tetovo Correctional Home and that this disproportionately affects children of Roma origin placed in that institution. QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES 1.     Is the applicant still in the Tetovo Correctional Home? If so, is he currently provided with any sort of education there? If not, when did he leave?   2.     Has the applicant exhausted domestic remedies as required by Article   35 § 1, given that the situation giving rise to the application was examined by the domestic courts only in the framework of the public interest action brought by the ERRC (see Kósa v.   Hungary   (dec.), no.   53461/15, §§   55-63, 21 November 2017; X and Others v. Albania , nos.   73548/17 and   45521/19, § 64, 31 May 2022; and Ugulava v. Georgia (no.   2) , no.   22431/20, § 42 in fine , 1 February 2024)?   3.     Has the applicant been denied the right to education, guaranteed by Article   2 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention on account of the unavailability of formal education in the Tetovo Correctional Home, as established by the domestic courts in proceedings regarding the public interest action brought by the ERRC (see, for general principles, Velyo Velev v. Bulgaria , no.   16032/07, §§ 30-33, ECHR 2014 (extracts)?   4.     Has there been a violation of the applicant’s rights under Article 14 of the Convention read in conjunction with Article 2 of Protocol No.1 (see, for general principles, Horváth and Kiss v. Hungary , no. 11146/11, §§   101-08, 29 January 2013)?   5.     Has the applicant suffered discrimination, on the grounds of his Roma origin, contrary to Article 1 of Protocol No.12 to the Convention?   The Government are invited to provide detailed information on whether formal elementary and secondary education is provided to the children placed in the Tetovo Correctional Home.