CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2021
| Author | Mathilde Ellena, Brouzes |
|---|---|
| Title | Strategic Litigation in the Right to Education. A Case Study of Discrimination in Mayotte. |
| Summary | Strategic litigation on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR) claims has been studied at great length, including its impact on redistributive justice and social changes. However, a major factor of rights-denials is that hidden and diffuse practices of the administrations in charge of distributing social rights are happening far from the judiciary scrutiny. They often take the form of abusive requests of additional documents at the front desk. These widespread denials are often made orally and thus, constitute administrative decisions difficult to prove. The example of the French oversea-territory, Mayotte, is an evidence of it. Discriminations against foreign children take the form of denial to access schools because of abusive administrative requests during the enrollment process. The shortage of available public services and infrastructures opens the door to such abusive decisions, administrative arbitrary and discrimination. This unchanging situation may lead to consider that legal mobilizations before Courts are inefficient to address this type of inequalities indirectly impacting certain groups. However, quite the opposite, our approach is to research how courts could end efficiently diffuse administrative denials of those rights. This will be assessed through a particular case study. A new type of action recently introduced in France may find a real interest in this respect. Its collective dimension as well as its potential in bringing issues that are broadly shared within the society may make a difference in highlighting the need for public infrastructures and structural changes. Indeed, France recently introduced a procedure based on the pattern of the class action (‘action de groupe’). It was opened to very few legal matters, including discrimination. Not only its collective dimension but also the focus on discrimination may carry a strong potential in litigating ESCR. It is thus worth researching how this new type of action may support claims in access to education in Mayotte. Given that my assumption is that this new type of action could make a difference in contrast with usual procedures in terms of success in a material and social sense, in the following developments, I solely analyze the potential victory of the case study in Court. In order to assess so, I use a specific methodology drawn from strategic litigation assessments in the matter of equal pay legal mobilization in Europe, namely, the Legal Opportunity Structure (LOS). I then apply it to the example of the French department of Mayotte. |
| Supervisor | Ruiz Chiriboga, Oswaldo |
| Department | Legal Studies LLM |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2021/brouzes_mathilde.pdf |
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