Spain’s National Court rules bar exam may be sat in Spanish only

Alluding to criteria of proportionality, Spain’s National Court has ruled that the Spanish bar exam may be written only in Spanish because not being allowed to use Catalan, Galician, or Basque "does no harm to students" taking it. The Barcelona Bar Association, the Catalan Lawyers’ Council, and the Catalan Society of Legal Studies complain that this proceeding is illegal because it undermines the official status of the Catalan language and is an act of linguistic discrimination. These institutions claim that not using Catalan is a violation of the Constitution, which establishes the official nature of the languages, as well as the duty to protect them and give them special respect. They also claim that it does not comply with the Catalan Statute, which establishes the right to language choice, and the European Charter for Languages, specifically point 7.2, which establishes that countries must guarantee "the elimination of all distinctions, exclusions, or restrictions in the use of minority languages".

In previous years, the exam was held in Madrid and was only available in Spanish. Last year the Catalan Bar Association called for the decentralization of the tests; that is, for them to be held, in the case of Catalan graduates, in Barcelona city. Once this goal was achieved --Saturday’s exam will be held in the headquarters of the Barcelona Bar Association-- they had to press for the inclusion of Catalan civil law in the exam, as initially only Spanish civil law was tested. In the end, a section on regional law was included. With this year’s exam, the creation of six assessment committees in different autonomous regions was also announced, one of which would be Catalonia; however, the language of the exam was not specified. The Catalan Lawyers’ Council requested that the exam be available in Catalan. Although the Spanish Justice Minister, Rafael Catalá, promised to include Catalan, just a few days ago the news came that the exam would only be in Spanish, which left little time to take any action.

On this issue, the Catalan Bar Association and the Justice Council announced that if sitting the exam in Catalan as well presented a technical problem for the Ministry, the Bar Association would pay the expense incurred and would aid in the translation work. "Therefore there is no economic or legal reason, nor should there be a political one, to not safeguard the rights and freedoms of the people", said Oriol Rusca, chairman of the Barcelona Bar Association, this Friday in a press conference. "This would mean that bilingualism is merely a sham", Rusca stated.

Use of Catalan in justice is marginal

Moreover, if there is an area in which Catalan is marginal it is in Justice, where it is only used 12.5% of the time. "This is very serious, because the main message received from the profession by graduates who take the exam is that Catalan plays no role in justice", explained Josep Cruanyes, President of the Catalan Society of Legal Studies. "What the Ministry is doing is perpetuating a situation of repression that took place during the Franco regime", declared Cruanyes.

The bar exam was sat last Saturday by 442 law school graduates.