A court has canceled a selection process of the Barcelona Urban Guard because a candidate could not answer the interview questions in Spanish. The events date back to 2020, when an internal promotion process was carried out to fill some fifty sergeant positions in this body. According to the sentence, the agent maintains that he requested to express himself in Spanish in the fourth phase of the process – the interview – and that the request was denied. For this reason he ended up doing it in Catalan, despite acknowledging that he does not “express himself as well” as in his mother tongue, Spanish.
The document gives truth to the agent’s version, noting that the skill level must be revealed through an interview, the person must be able to express himself in the language of his choice, in order to “show the skills that are valued in the same”. It also puts on the table the fact that a report states that the interview is done in Catalan, but that the questions can be answered in Catalan or Spanish.
For all these reasons, the judge obliges the Barcelona City Council to annul the result of the test and resume the process of the candidate in the interview phase, so that he can repeat it in the co-official language that he “freely chooses” to be able to answer again to the questions put to him by the court. On the other hand, she also obliges the consistory to pay the costs of the procedure.
The PP celebrates the decision
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The municipal group of the PP in Barcelona has celebrated that the sentence “protects the linguistic rights” of the agent, who will now have “the right” to repeat the test in question. He has also called the event “outrageous” and criticized the mayor, Ada Colau, and the PSC for “having allowed it.”
“It is intolerable that an agent cannot respond in the official language of Spain”, detailed its president, Josep Bou. “It is one more example of the mayor’s sectarianism”, he added, “with this discrimination she does not seek excellence in the selection processes”.