No change. The High Court of Catalonia (TSJC), via the standing chamber which makes judicial decisions during the August holiday period, has refused to apply the 25% Spanish quota in Catalan schools as an interim measure, in response to the request by the language pressure group Assembly for a Bilingual School, which was making a last-ditch attempt before the new school term to impose the 25% ruling throughout Catalonia, whose application the TSJC itself suspended in July following the new regulations approved by the Catalan government. In the resolution, released this Monday and reported by the EFE agency, the court does not change the criteria of the 2020 resolution, which was confirmed by the Supreme Court in 2022, and was then paralyzed during the summer.
In July, an administrative disputes chamber of the court accepted that the new laws approved by the Catalan government and parliament - Decree Law 6/22 and Law 8/22 - prevented the application of its earlier resolution, but at the same time affirmed that the new Catalan legislative measure might "violate several articles of the Spanish Constitution" by creating a situation where education in the Spanish language is not guaranteed. With its resolution on July 4th, the TSJC paralysed the imposition of the 25% Spanish language quota on all schools in the Catalan system and at the same time sent the new laws to the Spanish Constitutional Court.
Bilingual School group complains about court and prosecutor
The Assembly for a Bilingual School has protested against the court's response on Twitter and has announced that it will file an appeal against the resolution. The language pressure group demands that at the start of this academic year 2022-23 - which for primary schools starts on September 5th - "some" subject be taught in Spanish. The group also criticizes that "surprisingly, the prosecution sides supports the Catalan government and also opposes the interim measures".
📢El TSJC rechaza la adopción de medidas cautelares que garantizarían que en el inicio de curso se impartiera "alguna" asignatura EN castellano @AEBCatalunya recurrirá la resolución
— AEB Catalunya (@AEBCatalunya) August 29, 2022
📢Sorprendentemente el fiscal se alinea con @govern y también se opone a las medidas cautelares pic.twitter.com/eFjwp6K2Du
The suspension of the language ruling, which required 25% of class time in Catalan schools to be conducted with Spanish as the vehicular language, will not be eternal. At the end of July, the administrative disputes chamber also asked the Constitutional Court (TC) to consider a question of possible unconstitutionality of both Catalan legislative moves: Decree Law 6/22, schools passed by Catalan cabinet in May, which sets the criteria applicable for the preparation, approval, validation and review of the language teaching plans, and law 8/22, on the use and learning of official languages in non-university education, passed by the Catalan Parliament. The Catalan court advanced the matter because it had concluded that the Spanish language is not represented in this legislation as the official language.
The TSJC asked the opinion of the parties involved in the case on whether it was necessary to take the two legislative measures to the Constitutional Court, but for some jurists, the fact that the TSJC took the initiative itself to take the laws to the higher court "demonstrates the end of the separation of powers" . In the July resolution, the court accuses the Catalan government and Parliament of "blocking" the execution of its sentence, with the two new regulations, which it already considers unconstitutional.