•
It is necessary to educate the general public about the right to education and the remedies
available and to ensure that the legal profession and the judiciary have on - going
education on the developments in this field.
Discussion
Introduction
A right is considered to be justiciable if an individual can invoke that right before a national,
regional or international judicial or quasi-judicial body.103 Increasingly jurisprudence has
confirmed the justiciability of the right to education.104 The justiciability of the right to
education has also been supported by many international bodies and legal experts.105 This has
been reinforced especially by the reports of the Special Rapporteur on the right to education
which bear witness to the importance attached to these rights by the majority of UN Member
States.106 Further, the Special Rapporteur sees the growing litigation at the national and
regional levels as demonstrating that violation of economic, social and cultural rights,
including the right to education, leads to judicial recourse.107
The right to education has been and continues to be litigated at the domestic, regional and
international levels.108
The existing body of jurisprudence lays down principles for the
103
UNESCO(CR)/ECOSOC(CESCR) Joint Expert Group on the Monitoring of the Right to Education
Justiciability of the Right to Education 175 EX/28 12-13 May 2006, at para 2.
104
Dilcia Yean y Violeta Bosica (Case No 12 189) Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 22
February 2001; Unni Krishnan JP v State of Andhra Pradesh (1993) 1 SCC 645, at para 183, page 738;
Autism Europe v France Complaint No. 13/2002 Committee of Social Rights. Freeman, Van Ert,
International Human Rights Law: Essentials of Canadian Law, Irwin Law Publishers, 2004, at 79;
UNESCO CESCR General Comment no. 3 The nature of State party obligations Article 2, 5th session
14 December 1990, http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(symbol)/CESCR+General+comment+3.En?Ope
nDocument (last accessed 27 March 2007) at para 2.
105
CESCR Status of the International Covenants on Human Rights, Report by Mr Hatem Koltrane
independent expert on the question of a draft optional protocol to the ICESCR, 59th session
E/CN.4/2003/53, 13 January 2003 http://www.hri.ca/fortherecordcanada/documentation/commission/ecn4-2003-53.htm (last accessed 27 March 2007).
106
UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, E/CN.4/2005/50, 17 December 2004,
http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G04/171/40/PDF/G0417140.pdf?OpenElement (last
accessed 27 March 2007) paras 51 – 59. This report points to increasing case law. See also United
Nations Workshop for Judges on the Justiciability of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in South
Asia, New Delhi, Opening Address by Ms Mary Robinson High Commissioner for Human Rights, 17
November 2001 http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/5962093D418A5BCFC1256B74
003E0080?opendocument (last accessed 24 March 2007) at 3. Dilcia Yean y Violeta Bosica (Case No
12 189) Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 22 February 2001.
107
UN Special Rapporteur on Education, E/CN.4/2005/50, 17 December 2004, http://daccessdds.un.org
/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G04/171/40/PDF/G0417140.pdf?OpenElement (last accessed 27 March 2007) at
para 53.
108
In fact, the volume and importance of cases is such that the OHRCR announced that a database on
case law on the right to education will be launched in the future. See also the report of the UN Special
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