It had not been long since the Constitutional Court's ruling on the new Statute, when Professor Marc Carrillo, a professor of constitutional law at the UPF and a great expert in the contemporary legal history of Spain, warned us, in a work meeting of the Research Group on the Francoist and Democratic Eras (GREFD-UAB; currently, Research Group on Dictatorships and Democracies, GReDD-UAB), that everything that referred to the Catalan language in the public sphere had come out profoundly affected. In non-legal terms, in this area of the TC ruling, the most radical and retrograde Spanish nationalism had prevailed, the kind that has always maintained, since imperial times (returned to the present and for which King Felipe VI does not have to apologize because, as a very beloved novelist in Spain wrote, his predecessors brought them urban planning, sewers, and something else) until our days (more than 500 years!), that the nation is founded on language and religion; that is, the Spanish language and the most rancid Catholicism. With Catholicism fallen into disgrace, the language remained (and remains). The final result was a foregone conclusion.

A simple question to ChatGPT (“What is the approximate number of unfavorable rulings against the Catalan language that have occurred during the democratic period?”) gives us a rather long and, above all, disheartening answer. The AI does not dare to give a specific number, but it distinguishes: if we stick to rulings that have limited Catalan normalization policies, especially in the educational and administrative spheres, the figure ranges between twenty and thirty rulings against the Catalan language. However, if we broaden the focus (which must be broadened) to interlocutory orders and resolutions considered minor (precautionary measures, enforcement of judgments, etc.), the figure easily rises to “diverse dozens” of judicial decisions against Catalan issued during the democratic period, that is, from 1978 onwards. The areas affected by rulings that limit the use of Catalan are, for the most part, the educational system, followed by regional linguistic regulations, linguistic requirements for civil servants, institutional use, and signage. In summary, a sustained judicial effort over time to minimize or erase the presence of the Catalan language from public spaces, especially in schools. That linguistic diversity be politically attacked, vilified in the media, and pursued judicially and even policed almost as if it were a crime, is an unacceptable situation for anyone with a minimum of democratic sensibility and common sense. It is, plain and simple, a disgrace.Judges are people who have been able to win the competitive examinations to become judges, and therefore are perfectly capable of understanding that Catalan is the language of Catalonia, with all that this entails. It is another matter that they decide not to accept it. The fallacious reasoning that attempts to present Spanish as if it were a language in danger due to linguistic immersion in Catalan is exactly the same (equally unacceptable) as those that say that feminist demands are a danger to men, or that the integration of immigrants endangers the continuity of Western cultures and societies. They are expressions of supremacism, and this is what the judges who issue jurisprudence against an official language, as fully deserving of respect as any other, do: spit supremacism with a stroke of the pen. To use justice and place it at the service of a political ideology, in this case that of state Spanish nationalism.

A new ruling from the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) on Catalan in classrooms has dealt another blow to the interests of the Catalan language. The TSJC has issued a judgment opposing the notion that Catalan is the sole language guaranteeing classroom cohesion. This decision partially upholds an administrative appeal filed by the Assembly for a Bilingual School of Catalonia (AEB). This pro-Spanish unity organization challenged the resolution published on the website of the Catalan government's Department of Education and Vocational Training in June, entitled Documents for the organization and management of centers. Center organization. Academic year 2025-2026The AEB (Association of School Teachers) has been quick to celebrate the court's decision, asserting that the Education Department's resolution "aimed to impose Catalan as the sole language of social, cultural, and community cohesion, creating an exclusionary school model that violates fundamental rights and ignores the real linguistic pluralism of Catalonia." In its ruling, which only partially upholds the appeal, the TSJC (High Court of Justice of Catalonia) rejects the section of the department's text that referred to management and mentioned using the Catalan language "as an element of cohesion" for students enrolled in schools in Catalonia. "Ultimately, the use of Catalan is linked to student cohesion, excluding the use of Spanish and, once again, linking the official language of the State to a mere academic obligation, which does not contribute to the formation of a society that shares the same values," the ruling states. "This conception of Catalan," the document continues, "goes beyond its use as a vehicle for instruction in education and implies an aspiration to create a binary relationship between Catalan culture and the use of Catalan, to the exclusion of Spanish, which is simply a language that must be learned, but excluded in those aspects related to the formation of Catalan citizenship." For the AEB, it is "especially relevant" that the TSJC has ruled in this way and that "the imposition of Catalan as the sole cohesive language has been corrected."

As timely as a birthday present, the High Court of Justice (TSJC) had the courtesy to coincide the national holiday with the announcement of the repeal of a large part of the decree that sought to protect Catalan in the classroom.

To celebrate and encourage the Diada with coherence, the High Court of Justice of Catalonia "has annulled a large part of the decree on the linguistic regime that the government of Pere Aragonès approved to protect Catalan as the vehicular language in schools and prevent the implementation of linguistic percentages." we read in the ARAThe Assembly for a Bilingual School group (which presents itself to the world with a not-very-bilingual name) demanded its repeal and has succeeded. The president of the Generalitat (Catalan government) has said: "We will not allow anyone to make political use of the language, because that is the worst thing you can do to promote coexistence. Catalan must continue to be an inclusive, unique, and transversal language for the country and the school."

Another setback from the courts to one of the decisions of Ada Colau's government as mayor of Barcelona. The High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) has annulled the veto that the Barcelona City Council in 2021 imposed the construction of a franchise of the Hermitage Museum on a plot of land at the new port entrance. According to the ruling that has been released The Country, the museum project met the urban planning requirements and had the necessary economic viability and, therefore, the magistrates consider that the refusal of the municipal government (with Barcelona en Comú at the forefront) arbitrarily affected the rights of the promoter.