Timishev v. Russia, Nos. 55762/00, 55974/00, ECtHR (Second Section), 13 March 2006

Refusal of school admission to the migrant’s children due to the lack of documents attesting his registration as a resident.

Art. 2 Prot. 1 ECHR

1. By binding themselves not to “[deny] the right to education” under Article 2 of Protocol No. 1, the Contracting States guarantee to anyone within their jurisdiction a right of access to educational institutions existing at a given time and the possibility of drawing, by official recognition of the completed studies, profit from the education received.

2. In a democratic society, the right to education, which is indispensable to the furtherance of human rights, plays such a fundamental role that a restrictive interpretation of the first sentence of Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 would not be consistent with the aim or purpose of that provision.

3. The right to education guarantees access to elementary education, which is of primordial importance for a child's development. Therefore, the exercise of that right by children to be made conditional on the registration of their parents' residence breaches art. 2 of the first additional protocol of the ECHR.
(Case related to the Russian school authorities refusal of school admission of the applicant’s children because the applicant, a forced migrant from Chechnya, had surrendered his migrant's card in exchange for compensation for the destruction, as a result of a military operation, of his property in the Chechen Republic and had thereby forfeited his registration as a resident in Russia.)