The Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) ordered on Monday the Ministry of Education to execute in a maximum period of 15 days the ruling that requires teaching at least 25% of teaching hours in Spanish in all educational centers in Catalonia. The decision forced negotiations to resume in Parliament to approve some tweaks to the language policy law, but Junts has definitively dropped the agreement it signed with the PSC, ERC and the ‘comuns’. These three games have a majority to carry out the retouching, but they are already in injury time. These are the keys to the journey to make the immersion more flexible and fit the judicial sentence:
The legal journey began in 2015, when the State Attorneyon behalf of the Ministry of Education that piloted Jose Ignacio Wert, denounced the “inaction & rdquor; of the Generalitat to comply with the ‘Wert law’, which mentioned Spanish as the vehicular language. The arrival of Pedro Sanchez Moncloa promoted a new rule, the ‘Celáa law’, also referring to the minister Isabel Celáa, with a very ambiguous text on the use of both languages in education and which was supported by Esquerra on understanding that it shielded linguistic immersion . However, the criteria of the judges remains the same because they interpret that the vehicular use of the official languages must be made effective & rdquor; and that, therefore, the Generalitat must apply 25% of Spanish in educational plans. The court specifies in its latest resolution that, in addition to the Spanish language subject, schools must teach another subject in Spanish and this must be a core subject.
How will the Government react?
The Government He has been maneuvering before the Justice for months to buy time and consolidate in a decree a response that allows circumventing the application of this ruling. The resources have been constant, but without success, because the magistrates have maintained what was said to the point of admitting the forced execution requested by entities in favor of bilingualism. The purpose was to reform the language policy law with broad support in Parliament (PSC, ERC, Junts and ‘comuns’) and then outline the decree, but the drop in post-convergence complicates this path. Given this, the Executiu will appeal again, but the options are increasingly scarce to circumvent compliance since the judicial body that resolves them is the same one that dictates the resolution. Later, it would reach the Supreme Court, but it already considered the ruling final. Another option is that the Generalitat asks for more time demanding that the court clarify some questions about his sentence.
The ‘conseller’ Josep González-Cambray He asked the educational community for calm and maintained that the centers should not apply any changes, without detailing how it will act if after 15 days there is no legal framework that shields the current model. If he finally does not comply, he may expose himself to complaints for disobedience that carry penalties of disqualification from holding public office.
Government spokesperson, Patricia Plaja, has assured that more Catalan will be taught in Catalan schools in the coming years: “In Catalan schools, more Catalan will be taught after the sentence than before this attack. We will put all our efforts into increasing the use of Catalan in all areas from school”. However, the minister spokesperson for the Government, Elizabeth Rodriguezhas already warned that the “high inspection” of the State will act so that the sentence of the courts is fulfilled.
Why is the Parliament’s pact on ‘stand by’?
While the Government advances in its response to the order, the parties remain stuck on the retouching of the language policy law. PSC, ERC, Junts and ‘comuns’ registered a bill on March 24 that maintained Catalan as the “vehicular language” and that, in turn, guaranteed the use of Spanish, giving educational centers room to define their projects linguistic. The post-convergence froze the pact eight hours later due to the controversy it generated in some sectors of the independence movement. Since then, Junts has requested more time on up to three occasions to continue negotiating and prevent the text from going to plenary session. But the court’s umpteenth resolution put ERC, PSC and ‘comuns’ in discount time, and Junts has definitively dropped out of the agreement because, in his opinion, it does not gather the necessary consensus with the entities. The purples and the PSC are committed to discussing it “now”, but Esquerra asks for a few days to analyze all the scenarios within their reach without Junts. Sources of the negotiation affirm that the post-convergence has not put on the table in any meeting what aspects it intends to modify of the agreed text, for which reason they blame the discrepancies -and the party’s congress on June 4- in the party for the lack of covenant.
What does the linguistic pact say?
The text that was initially signed does not set any percentage. The document states that Catalan is the language “normally used” as the vehicular and learning language of the educational system and that “Castilian is also used in the terms established by the linguistic projects of each center.” “In order to achieve oral and written command of Catalan and Spanish at the end of compulsory education, the teaching of the official languages and in the official languages must be guaranteed an adequate presence in the curricula and in the educational projects of each center” , ditch.