The Supreme Court prohibits excluding Spanish from signage in Catalan public schools and institutes

BarcelonaNew ruling against Catalan in schools. The Supreme Court (TS) has ruled that Spanish cannot be excluded from the signage of public educational centers in Catalonia. Following an appeal filed by the Assembly for a Bilingual School of Catalonia, with the support of the Prosecutor's Office, against a ruling by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC), the Supreme Court now annuls a section of a document on the organization and management of educational centers for the 2022/23 academic year, which stated that "the signage of the center's spaces is in Catalan, Occitan in Aran, and in Catalan Sign Language if applicable, which are the reference languages of the educational system".

The Supreme Court considers that "the signage of educational centers is not irrelevant" and therefore "the exclusion of the use of Spanish" from public centers "negatively impacts the vehicular language of teaching or, if preferred, restricts its normal potential". This would annul that specific document, but it remains to be seen what the real impact in classrooms will be. The Department of Education is studying the scope of the ruling but already informs ARA that in the documents for the organization and management of centers for 2026/2027 "there is no reference to the signage of the centers, only to current regulations". Furthermore, the ruling states that "it is contrary to the law to exclude Spanish" and not that there is "a duty to sign in Spanish", so "it does not oblige signage in Spanish", according to the department.

The TSJC had excluded the languages of school signage from its ruling, understanding that it is not part of the educational activity. Now, however, the Supreme Court rules that teaching is not confined to classrooms and books, but that the physical space where the activity takes place also has an impact. Following the Prosecutor's arguments, the court considers that the setting and landscape are part of the educational activity.

The ruling reiterates that "Spanish is the official language throughout Spain, which means it is a language that cannot be excluded from communications between public authorities and citizens" and, therefore, cannot be alien "to the regime of linguistic co-officiality" established by Article 3 of the Constitution. The ruling also differentiates between the signage of commercial establishments and educational centers, where Article 27 of the Constitution on the right to education prevails.