ECtHR: failure to provide disabled children with tailored learning support breaches human rights

Today, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) handed down its judgment in G.L. v. Italy (application no. 59751/15), a case concerning the failure by Italy to provide a young girl suffering from nonverbal autism with specialised learning support during her first two years of primary education, even though such support was provided for by law, due to the State’s lack of financial resources.

The ECtHR found that, by doing so, Italian authorities breached the prohibition of discrimination in Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in conjunction with the right to education under Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 to the ECHR.

In today’s judgment, the Strasbourg-based court noted in particular that, because of