On June 18, the European Court of Human Rights rejected the appeal filed by a number of families against the ruling of the TSJC that obliged a school in Canet to teach 25% of the lessons in Spanish in a P5 class. According to the Court, the appeal is not well-founded; someone should have explained to the families that alleging a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights in relation to this matter had no prospects.That the inadmissibility was so foreseeable does not detract from the fact that the Court's reasoning is entirely inadmissible. (No serious judge can claim, for example, that in Catalonia Spanish is "prohibited" as a language of instruction.) But beyond these trivial observations, a deeper reflection is necessary.The first thing to say is that in comparative terms the Catalan model is difficult to understand. In Europe there is no other case in which immersive teaching in a regional or minority language is compulsory for all students in the relevant territory. In Wales and Scotland, there is immersive teaching in Welsh and Gaelic respectively, but it is not compulsory. In the Basque Country and Navarre, there is also immersive teaching in Basque, but it is also not compulsory. Etc.Besides the known judicial reprimands, mandatory immersive teaching in Catalan has also been criticized because it "Castilianizes" Catalan-speaking students, to the extent that (for demographic and social reasons) Spanish has become de facto the language of common use in most educational centers. There is a political party (Alhora) that professes this belief and advocates for two educational networks to choose from: an immersive network with 100% in Catalan and a non-immersive network with Catalan and Spanish as vehicular languages.

1. The ECHR's decision regarding the presence of the Catalan language in the education system has probably been the hardest blow this issue has received since the TC's ruling against the 2006 Statute.

The same day that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) backed the 25% of Spanish in classrooms, Barcelona brought together the main experts in linguistic diversity in an international forum organized by Linguapax and financed, precisely, with European Union funds. One of the speakers was the Welsh sociolinguist Elin Haf Gruffydd Jones, president of the European Language Equality Network (ELEN) and director of the Centre for Welsh and Celtic Studies, who knows the Catalan case in depth – and, moreover, also speaks it.

I suppose you are aware of the news that the European Court of Human Rights has dismissed the lawsuit by parents of the Canet de Mar school against the ruling that ordered 25% of classes to be taught in Spanish.

Catalan is not progressing adequately in Europe. With its claimed official status in institutions set aside – one of the conditions ERC, and especially Junts, imposed on Pedro Sánchez to invest him as president – the forceful arguments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) now arrive, endorsing the obligation of 25% Castilian in schools, as defended by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC).

Strasbourg's cold water bucket to Catalan and linguistic immersion. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has unanimously decided to dismiss the lawsuit filed by families from the Turó del Drac educational center in Canet de Mar against the ruling of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) that "requires at least 25%% of classes to be taught in Spanish in Catalonia. "Prohibiting the use of Spanish as a language of instruction would deprive Spanish citizens of their right to be educated in the national language," concludes the decision published this Thursday by the European court. The verdict comes as the Constitutional Court's decision on the appeal filed by the TSJC with the high court is still pending, so that it could decide whether the law and the decree approved by the Government of Pere Aragonès to prevent the application of the 25% Spanish ruling infringed the Constitution. The ECHR's decision is not binding and the Government points out that it does not affect the entire educational system. Experts consulted by ARA agree, although they also warn that its arguments could influence the Constitutional Court's decision.

Since March 11, there has been an open selection process to choose the next Spanish judge at the European Court of Human Rights. It is a call that has opened a new dispute between the judiciary and the Spanish government, there are about twenty applicants and interviews have already begun. Among those who have applied for this call, according to various sources consulted by ARA, is the Catalan jurist Jordi Nieva-Fenoll (Barcelona, 1970). This well-known professor of procedural law in Catalonia, along with the member of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) Carlos Hugo Preciado (who has challenged the procedure in the National High Court), are the two Catalans of whom this newspaper is aware among the 28 applicants who have submitted credentials to reach Strasbourg. A list that is not public at the moment.

The election of magistrates to occupy relevant positions in the judiciary is always associated with political battles or, at least, with the tug-of-war between conservatives and progressives. The composition of the General Council of the Judiciary, the Constitutional Court, and the Supreme Court usually makes front-page news, while the election to international bodies often takes a back seat. This is not the case now: there is an open battle over the selection process for the Spanish judge at the European Court of Human Rights. The current judge, the conservative María Elósegui, sees her term end in March 2027, and the process initiated by the Spanish government has generated controversy among candidates: it has been challenged by a member of the CGPJ proposed by Sumar, Carlos Hugo Preciado, and, according to legal sources consulted by this newspaper, he has not been the only one, as other aspirants have also done so or have voiced their intention to do so.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled in favor of the Spanish justice system for restricting the political rights of Jordi Sánchez, Jordi Turull, and Oriol Junqueras following their imprisonment for the October 1st referendum and the December 2017 elections. The Strasbourg court's decision, supported by Supreme Court Justice Pablo Llarena, found that the three leaders violated several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights and its protocols. The ruling aligns with the Spanish Constitutional Court's assessment that there was sufficient evidence to suspect serious crimes. This is despite the fact that, as the UN Human Rights Committee stated, the leaders had called on citizens to demonstrate peacefully, and isolated acts of violence could not be attributed to them.

So far, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has been overturning all resources of the independence movement that has arrived. This Thursday was no exception: Strasbourg concluded that Spain did not violate the political rights of Oriol Junqueras, Jordi Sánchez, and Jordi Turull when it prevented them from exercising their rights as members of parliament during their pretrial detention, when they were elected to the Catalan Parliament in the 2017 elections. The Court found no violation of their right to free elections or their right to liberty and, therefore, upheld the limitation of their rights that resulted from their deprivation of liberty ordered by the Supreme Court. In its opinion, the Spanish high court sufficiently justified the deprivation of liberty to "preserve the constitutional order," and recalled that all of them were able to participate in the Catalan elections and that, despite not being able to exercise their rights in person, they were able to take office and subsequently elected a president, Quim Torra, on the 20th.

Eight years after the August 17 attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils, the victims maintain their objective of having a judicial investigation clarify everything surrounding the 17-A incident. The ruling of the National Court, which focused only on the explosion in Alcanar the day before, ignored the possible relationship between the CNI and the imam of Ripoll, Abdelbaki se-Satty. However, in the last year the Congressional commission of inquiry into the 17-A attacks has revealed documents that reveal that the CNI had tried to capture Es-SattyIn this same commission, one of the three convicted for the attacks, Mohamed Houli, He openly accused the CNI of knowing "the imam's intentions.".

Josep Casadevall (1946, Girona) is an Andorran lawyer and served as a judge at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) from 1995 to 2015. In the last four years of his career in Strasbourg (2011-2015), he became vice-president of the court. He spoke to ARA about the latest rulings on the Catalan case.

After the 1-O referendum, and with the departure of part of the pro-independence leaders into exile and the imprisonment of the other, the political dispute moved to the courts. Since then, and perhaps with a touch of naivety, the pro-independence movement placed great hope in European justice. And it is true that important victories were achieved, such as the refusal of the German courts to hand Carles Puigdemont over to Spain to be tried for rebellion (yes, for embezzlement, which is the case he currently faces), or the obligation in the European Parliament to accept Puigdemont and Toni Com as MEPs (he stood for election despite being in prison). But the truth is that there have also been defeats, and, furthermore, the victories have not served to change reality or thestatus quo.

The Irídia-Center for the Defense of Human Rights association filed an appeal this Thursday to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in which it warns that no Spanish court has agreed to investigate the assault of a metro guard on a teenager in 2022 as torture. As of today, the guard has been acquitted. Despite the scene being recorded on video, the judge ruled that there was insufficient evidence and the injuries suffered by the minor were attributed to the fact that he had been restrained after becoming violent, according to the guard's defense.

The ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday, which supports the possibility that the Constitutional Court may veto, in certain cases, the processing of motions in favour of the right to self-determination or against the monarchy, has been a bucket of cold water, and there will be time to analyse it. In this article I focus on another issue relating to the ECHR. In the framework of the negotiations between Junts per Catalunya and Pedro Sánchez's executive in Switzerland, on Monday it became known that the Spanish Council of Ministers would approve Spain's accession to Protocol 16 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; Treaty No. 214) immediately. This protocol, which entered into force in August 2018, introduced a significant innovation in the judicial system for the protection of human rights in Europe. Specifically, it allows the highest instances of state courts designated by the Member States to request an advisory opinion from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on questions of principle related to the interpretation or application of the rights and freedoms defined in the Convention. Applications can be made in the context of cases pending before the competent domestic courts, and the ECtHR has the power to accept the application and issue an opinion which is formally non-binding. Although the innovation is significant, it is not comparable with the impact of the preliminary ruling procedure in European Union (EU) law due to the different legal structure of the Protocol No. 16 procedure compared to the preliminary ruling procedure at the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) – the so-called preliminary question, which is binding because the aim is to ensure the supremacy of EU law.

The ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that supports the right of the Constitutional Court to veto the processing of motions in favor of the right to self-determination or against the monarchy is undoubtedly a bucket of cold water and a reality check for the independence movement. It is true that the ECHR decision balances the rights of the deputies and the TC, but it also seems that the idea that European justice would end up giving the independence movement the right in all its cases against Spain has turned out not to be true. It is not so easy, therefore, for European judges to overrule a decision by the highest interpreter of the Constitution of a Member State.

That a court that calls itself a "Human Rights" court should establish that it is proportionate to veto a debate and a vote in parliament on the right to self-determination and the monarchy is the closest thing to a contradiction. Surely, to support their ruling, the European judges have found more solid legal grounds in the Constitution of a pre-existing state and in the jurisprudence of its highest interpreting body than in the attempts to disconnect from a regional Parliament with concealed constituent intentions. But the paradox remains: there is a right for self-determination or the monarchy to be voted on by citizens in an electoral programme but not for them to be voted on by their representatives, even if a parliamentary majority is in favour of it at the polls.

A setback for the independence movement, which has always maintained that everything should be possible to discuss in the Catalan Parliament. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday upheld that the Catalan parliament cannot discuss self-determination: it considers that the Constitutional Court (TC) has the right "in extreme circumstances" to veto resolutions that go against the Magna Carta in order to protect the Constitution. Strasbourg was to decide on Thursday whether freedom of expression and the political rights of MPs had been violated following the TC's veto of the processing of the resolution proposals on self-determination and the monarchy in the Parliament in autumn 2019, and it upheld the decisions of the high court. The ECHR recognises that the rights of parliamentarians were limited, but not violated. According to the European magistrates, the TC's decision was "proportionate".

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), based in Strasbourg, has now received appeals from all the political leaders the Spanish Supreme Court imprisoned over the 2017 Independence referendum. This Wednesday the last three were submitted Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) president and former Catalan vice-president Oriol Junqueras and former Catalan ministers Raül Romeva and Dolors Bassa. Now it is time to wait for the verdict. The appellants' legal team explained that all the appeals are expected to be grouped together into a single macro-case, and they reckon it will take "at least" two years to know the final outcome.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ordered Spain to pay €4,200 in compensation for "moral damages" to each of the Catalan judges who had appealed to the Strasbourg court after their case was dismissed in the State. The personal data and ID cards of the 33 Catalan judges who had signed a manifesto in favour of an independence referendum were leaked to the conservative daily La Razón in February 2014, a few months before the the 9 November vote on independence. The newspaper published an extensive article with the magistrates' names and ID photos.