European Court dismisses claim of child placed in mental asylum for home educating

By Roger Kiska, J.D. | March 9, 2011

The Alliance Defense Fund has just received word that the case against the German government filed by Hubert Busekros on behalf of his daughter at the European Court of Human Rights has been deemed inadmissible. Melissa at the age of 15 was placed in a mental asylum and then placed into foster care for being home educated under the laughable diagnosis that she had “school phobia.” Melissa had done well in all of her subjects except two, both with the same teacher and disruptive classroom environment. When the school insisted that she be held back a year, the Busekros’ made the informed decision to home educate. This led to fines, court cases and eventually to Melissa’s “arrest” at her own home one early morning when it was surrounded by police. She was then placed in the Nuremburg mental asylum.

The European Court held that: “in so far as the matters complained of were within its competence, the Court found that they did not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms sets out in the Convention or its Protocols.” The question therefore must be posed: If being placed in a mental institution for being home schooled and then being placed in foster care is not a human rights violation, then what is?

Since the incident, the family has left Germany and relocated elsewhere. Notification of the decision comes on the heels of international media attention being paid to Irene Wiens, who sits in a German jail simply for not having her children attend a radical “sexual education” interactive play.

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