Salay v. Slovakia, No. 29359/22, ECtHR (First Section), 27 February 2025

Pluralism and protection of ethnic minorities in access to education. Principle of non-discrimination and the State's positive obligation to devise non-prejudicial diagnostic tools. Indirect discrimination and State responsibility against the school segregation of Roma pupils.

Art. 8 ECHR
Art. 14 ECHR
Art. 2, Protocol No. 1 ECHR
Protocol No. 12 ECHR

In matters of education, the systematic and disproportionate placement of Roma pupils in special classes for mild intellectual disability, on the basis of diagnostic tests not adapted to the socio-cultural specificities of that group, amounts to indirect discrimination prohibited under Article 14 ECHR taken in conjunction with Article 2 of Protocol No. 1, where the State fails to demonstrate that it adopted adequate safeguards to prevent misdiagnosis and to take into account the needs of the Roma population as a vulnerable group.