First Catalan courses for judges from all over the State

BarcelonaJustice is one of the black spots of the language: only 14% of judges have a basic level of Catalan. This not only means that, by default, the linguistic choice of users in the courts is not respected, but also that the sentences written in Catalan are minimal, less than 7%, according to the radiography of Catalan in justice made public in 2022. The figures have never moved from the minimums. According to the latest Linguistic Uses Survey of 2023, only 25% used Catalan in justice bodies, the lowest percentage of all public administrations.

This Thursday, the Ministry of Justice and Democratic Quality and the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) have announced an agreement to carry out training activities for judges and students of the judicial career. And, for the first time, Catalan courses will be included in continuous training plans throughout the State, although the option to learn some co-official languages such as Galician and Valencian already existed since 2024, as specified by the CGPJ, as if the latter were a different language from Catalan.

The objective is to improve the Catalan competence of the members of the judicial career, regardless of their destination. There will be an introductory course (level A2) and another intermediate course (B2). It has also been agreed to collaborate in other training activities, such as congresses, seminars, and colloquiums. The linguistic training of professionals is one of the objectives of the National Pact for Language, which recognizes a structural deficit in justice.

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One of the keys to the lack of trials and judgments in Catalan is the structural lack of Catalan judges, due to the little tradition of taking competitive exams in the country and the same difficulty and duration of the process. In fact, the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia has already asked the State to urgently convene competitive examinations for judges, because 15% of the positions in Catalonia are vacant. Of the 871 positions, 132 are unassigned. And this is despite the fact that the Judicial School, the center that trains future judges for the entire State, is located in Vallvidrera.

In addition to the mobility of the body of magistrates and judges, lawyers recognize that the most used language in the courts, also on their part, is Spanish, because it is the language in which most laws are drafted. And it is the language of the profession: in public universities Catalan and Spanish have the same weight, but in private ones, in master's and bachelor's degrees, Spanish predominates by far.