The TSJC orders maintaining 25% Spanish in twelve schools

BarcelonaThe High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) has ordered 12 Catalan schools to continue teaching in Spanish for 25% of their classes. The Generalitat (Catalan Government) has once again faced refusal from the magistrates after filing several appeals to withdraw this measure from the schools where it is applied, following a judicial initiative by the families of students, usually represented by associations such as the Assembly for a Bilingual School (AEB) and We Speak Spanish.

The government had already unsuccessfully attempted to revoke the 25% Spanish language requirement in these schools with an appeal to the Supreme Court (TS), which also rejected the appeal. Therefore, the administration appealed again to the TSJC. who in 2020 issued the ruling that establishes that all schools in Catalonia must teach 25% of classes in Spanish. That sentence is now final, and the Government responded with a decree establishingthe exclusion of percentagesin the language projects of schools and institutes, and which is what it was trying to revive with the appeals it has rejected from the High Court of Justice (TSJC).

In fact, the administration's main argument for revoking the 25% Spanish requirement in these twelve schools is that the rulings ordering its application ignored the Government's decree excluding the percentages. Of the twelve resolutions that the TSJC made public this Tuesday, eight are orders that reject government appeals against rulings from the court itself, and the other four reject the administration's request that the ruling not be applied. The type of appeal varies in some schools depending on the stage of the judicial proceedings when the Generalitat filed the appeal.

Waiting for the Constitutional Court

This decree, the government's central argument, has been provisionally suspended since July. With it, the Catalan government, then led by Pere Aragonès, excluded percentages from determining language teaching in the language plans of schools and institutes. The law also added that these plans could not be changed mid-year—as some rulings required for individual cases of families requesting their children be taught in Spanish—and that the sole legal party responsible for the projects would be the Department of Education, not the school principals.

The decree is suspended following an appeal by the Catalan Assembly by a Bilingual School (AEB) and pending a ruling by the Constitutional Court (TC) on the validity of the regulations that support it. Various legal sources predict that a ruling could come in the coming weeks.

Specifically, the TC must rule ona decreeof the Government anda lawApproved by the Parliament to protect Catalan in the education system and exclude percentages. Both texts support the Government's decree pending the constitutional appeal filed by the High Court of Justice (TSJC), which found that they prevented the implementation of its ruling on the 25% requirement for Spanish.