BRUSSELS UPDATE
I’m not sure these folks ought to be a cause célèbre. Here’s an updated version of Peter van Zuidam’s HSWatch post (Reprinted with permission. Typing/formatting errors are mine.):
A bit of a background about this case. I miss one IMO very important aspect in how Mrs. Dr. Colen and Dr. Beliën interpret the Flemish law concerning HE, and that is that an inspector is only supposed to reject a child’s homeschool situation if it would be clear to each reasonably thinking person that the home education provided cannot meet the minimum requirements set by the state. Those requirements are indeed derived from article 29 para 1 of the UN Child’s Rights Convention, but also from article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.
So these parents forget to mention in their public defense one important aspect, that an inspector cannot reject HE, just because he’s in a bad mood about HE or about certain parents. Several HE-ers all over Europe would IMHO feel glad when they their supervision laws were checked and balanced this way ;-). This reasonability check gives parents the benefit of the reasonable doubt. In the spectrum of legislations about homeschooling, the Flemish decree is one of the most free. Parents have every right not to have their home education follow the national school curriculum, which is rather the norm in countries like Austria, France, Italy, the Czech republic, Hungary and Poland.
Another thing is that the mother in question, Dr. Alexandra Colen is a member of parliament for the party Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest), the political heir of the party Vlaams Blok (Flemish Block), which was forbidden by Belgian courts in 2005 because of their consequent racism. As far as I know, Vlaams Belang is led by the people who formerly led Vlaams Blok. Vlaams Belang has a racist reputation in Belgium, I must say. And because of the animosity this party and all other Belgian political parties spread against each other, some Belgians now loath everything concerning home education in Belgium, just because it is done and publicly defended by broadly known Vlaams Belang members.
Apart from this aspect, these parents point out 2 flaws in this homeschool statute that, to be honest, didn’t cross my mind first. The legal form by which a Flemish inhabitant intends to homeschool each school year makes the parents promise to send their kids to a school straightaway and without having the legal option of fighting this gov’t decision if their home education has been found insufficient in two subsequent inspections.
One other flaw is that the inspector is not obliged to give specific reasons for his decision to reject a homeschool situation. He may just write down his negative conclusion, that’s all. Mrs. Colen reported one case on her website (in Dutch) where this behavior was complained about.
In other words, if you want to home-educate legally, you can state you have to promise not to use a part of your European human rights beforehand (namely the right to appeal against a government’s decision to restrict one of your human rights before a court, the European Convention for Human Rights guarantees that).
When this law was defined, the gov’t even willfully left out any path of appeal concerning the disapproval of a homeschool situation. And I have read a few Strasbourg rulings where the ECHR found a state guilty of breaking the European Convention, just because a citizen was not given a clear path of process to question a restriction of a human right.
The second flaw reminds me of the Olsson contra Sweden case, in which the Strasbourg court found a restriction of the family life (which forbidding to continue home education clearly is an example of) acceptable only if the necessity to do so is clearly specified. A mere statement like “we found this home education insufficient, period” like inspectors seem to use in Flanders won’t do in the Strasbourg ECHR court, if you ask me.
Moreover, the unavailability of a legal path to oppose an inspector’s disapproval in effect reduces the benefit of the doubt that the parent is supposed to have to a mere matter of theory. There’s no way to ask a judge if he would think that an inspector’s disapproval would be shared by ‘each reasonably thinking human being’. The only way to fight this indeed seems to act disobediently, to not submit a homeschool intent form, and ask a penal judge if the legislation concerned meets the criteria set out in the ECHR.
So, I wouldn’t be too surprised if these parents get away with their act of civil disobedience. The Flemish community gov’t might end up revising their HE statute because of this case.
But in general, few families get their homeschool disapproved in Flanders. In the year 2004-2005 1 out of 86 inspections of children of primary school age was found insufficient.
In the Netherlands the minister of education still wants to have homeschooling supervised. I still present the Flamish law as an example of a more flexible government inspection approach, one that takes the diverse character of home education among different families and leaves parents the benefit of the doubt. But I warn about these two flaws, though.
Peter van Zuidam,
Secretary,
Netherlands Homeschool Association
So, the parents are members of a political party that, if not banned outright, skirts the very edges. I think it might be best if the conservative/homeschool bloggers
(AND HSLDA)
just sit this one out.
9 Responses to “BRUSSELS UPDATE”
 Comment by StephanieO June 17th, 2006 at 9:11 pm |
So do we or don’t we support the rights of racist parents to homeschool their kids? And who gets to pick which social values are the wrong ones, anyway? Maybe libertarians who want the government to do much less than it does are dangerous to the great society we’re creating… I’m just yanking your chain, Daryl. I realize these are difficult scenarios to deal with. But I do think that Larry Flynt did some great things for all of us in the US, however distasteful he and his product are. |
 Comment by Daryl Cobranchi June 18th, 2006 at 2:01 am |
That’s just it. It’s a different society with different rules and mores. |
 Comment by Scott W. Somerville June 18th, 2006 at 10:08 pm |
I wish “Daryl” would come back. This Darren guy is ready to sell the racist homeschoolers down the river. First they came for the racists, then they came for the homophobes, then… |
 Pingback from Support Group News Home Page » Blog Archive » Catching up… June 18th, 2006 at 11:49 pm |
[…] Daryl Cobranchi has an excellent post, Brussels Update that is a  response to this Brussels Journal Editor Threatened with Prosecution over Homeschooling article  from last week. […] |
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Comment by Darren June 19th, 2006 at 4:12 am |
Daryl hardly ever gets involved with HE issues overseas, feeling he doesn’t know the culture, the laws, or the personalities. He feels it is the height of arrogance for Americans to automatically assume that what we take as our rights here automatically translate into other languages. |
 Comment by Scott W. Somerville June 19th, 2006 at 11:11 am |
I’m speaking as a parent, not as an American. Parental rights are natural and sacred rights, not privileges the State can give or take away. |
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Comment by Daryl Cobranchi June 19th, 2006 at 11:24 am |
I’m speaking as a parent, not as an American. Parental rights are natural and sacred rights, not privileges the State can give or take away. Of course you’re speaking as an American. One could just as easily argue that the Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Association are just as natural and sacred. Yet the editor of the Brussels Journal was (is?) a member of a banned political party. That thought may be anathema to Americans, but it’s apparently a position that the Belgians are prepared to live with. Long story short– we try to impose our view of “natural and sacred” on other societies at our peril. |
 Comment by lumberjack June 19th, 2006 at 11:29 am |
I’ve been reading the Brussels Journal for some time now and I don’t see Paul Belien as a racist. It’s easy to form your own opinion though; just go read what he has written. And Vlaams Belang is expected to become the largest party in the next elections. So Dr. Alexandra Colen is a member of parliament of a widely accepted party. I mean come on, don’t you think maybe the racist brush was taken out a little early? What have they done that is racist? What real thing did Peter van Zuidam point to? Their politics? Come on, are all democrats dope smokers? Do all republicans hate black people? OK, we all know libertarians are… what? Well I hope they’re not gullible enough to paint a man racist on this flimsy evidence. |
 Comment by Dana June 22nd, 2006 at 10:17 am |
So we determine that the problem that the Beliel’s cite is real, and the only was around it appears to be what they have done. And it all goes back to my opinion that it isn’t really about homeschooling and the parent’s ability to do so, but about the family’s political affiliations. And therefore it is self-explanatory that we should just be quiet? Honestly, this aspect is what makes it interesting to me. A blogger in Egypt went to jail for his dissent from the state and bloggers around the world are now blogging about it and trying to pressure the government for his release. But we don’t know the cultural milieu of Egypt…and it is none of our concern? Why is the party illegal? For racism? No, I don’t support racism. But yes, it appears odd to Americans who have allowed the KKK and the Nazis free access to our public square. In fact, most Nazi literature distributed in Germany is printed in California because it is illegal in Germany (nevermind how an illegal party gains seats in Parliament). And while I very much doubt any of this influences Belgian politics in the least, I support each American’s right to freely express just how odd this seems to us. It does appear more like practices we expect from China than a liberal democracy (and I say liberal in the classic sense of the word). Most have done little more than quote the Belien’s and have offered very little of their own thoughts. How else are we to learn? |