Euro court rules against Tarantino

STRASBOURG

Claudia Tarantino lodged a complaint with the president. Hürriyet photo

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled against eight Italian students after they made a complaint that they could not obtain a place in the dentistry and medicine faculties following their unsuccessful attempts in examinations.

One of the applicants, Claudia Tarantino, successively failed to pass the entrance examination to gain access to the Faculty of Medicine in Palermo for three years. On two occasions, she lodged a complaint with the president. However, her request to refer the matter to the European Court of Justice and to be provisionally admitted to the university was systematically rejected. The court found “reasonable” the Italian legislation’s limiting access to universities to study dentistry and medicine.

“For the first time the Court has had to assess the compatibility with the right to education in the tertiary sector of the operation of a numerus clausus (the maximum number of candidates allowed to enter a university) coupled with an entrance Examination,” the statement said. “The Court concluded that the state had not exceeded its wide discretion to decide on such a matter. It essentially found that there existed a right to access education only in so far as a university had the capacity and resources and in so far as society had a need for a particular profession.”