London, 14 December 2010

On 9 December 2010, the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Savez crkava Rijec zivota and Others v Croatia (application no. 7798/08) found a violation of Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) in conjunction with Article 9 (freedom of religion) in circumstances where the Government of Croatia failed to provide an objective and reasonable justification for its less favourable treatment of some religious communities within Croatia. Importantly, the Court did not find a violation of Article 9 alone, thus underscoring the separate value of Article 14 to human rights protection under the ECHR.  

On 16 March 2010, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (the Court), in the case of Oršuš and Others v. Croatia (Application no.15766/03), ruled that Croatia discriminated against 15 Roma children who were segregated into separate school classes.

The case concerned 15 primary school children who had been segregated into Roma-only classes as a result of alleged failures to adequately acquire command of the Croatian language. The applicants, represented by the European Roma Rights Centre, the Croatian Helsinki Committee and Croatian attorney Lovorka Kusan, argued that they had not been provided with satisfactory measures to address their language difficulties and that their segregation was the result of racial discrimination.