The decision of the Government of Navarra, issued in January, to withdraw the concert and, consequently, public aid to schools that segregate by sex has suffered a first judicial setback. The Superior Court of Justice of Navarra (TSJN) has provisionally suspended the extinction of the educational agreement at the Miravalles-El Redín school adopted by the Department of Education for maintaining differentiated education. In the coming days it will be known if the pronouncement is the same with respect to the other affected center: Irabia-Izaga, which is also separated by sex and is also from Opus Dei.
In the order, which can be appealed before the judicial body itself, the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the TSJN agrees that the appellants, the associations of fathers and mothers of Miravalles and El Redín and the entity Fomento de Centros de Enseñanza, deposit a bank guarantee “sufficient to jointly and severally guarantee an amount equivalent to the public aid that the aforementioned agreement entails”.
The Chamber considers that the consequences of extinction “are considered to be quantitatively and qualitatively very relevant and very difficult or impossible” to revert or repair once executed, “since on the one hand they are structural consequences of a very difficult to reversible nature in relation to the conditions how they were developing so far”. In any case, the magistrates have not yet ruled on the underlying issue: the withdrawal of the concert from these centers, which would become privately financed unless they become mixed.
The Court adds that, on the other hand, “they fall into an objective field of special relevance and social importance (which is the educational field), and in a subjective field of special protection (underage students).” “All of this implies, for the sole purpose of the precautionary measure and in a highly qualified manner, damage that is impossible or difficult to repair in the technical-legal sense that we have just explained”, the judges point out.
The Government of Navarra issued a resolution on January 27 extinguishing the educational concerts of the Miravalles-El Redín and Irabia-Izaga schools. The latter center also appealed the decision and the judicial resolution on the precautionary suspension also requested will be known in the coming days.
On March 15, the Minister of Education dismissed the appeal filed by the Miravalles-El Redín school, a decision that was appealed before the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the TSJN.
In this judicial resolution, the magistrates analyze the precautionary suspension raised and, in the coming months, will decide on the merits of the matter, that is, on the extinction of the Bachillerato concerts to both schools for maintaining differentiated education.
The Tribunal considers that the execution of the appealed act could make the appeal lose its legitimate purpose.
The Government of Navarra argued that the act has a “strict economic content” and that, therefore, “it is not likely to cause damage that is difficult or impossible to repair”, since always, if the claim is upheld, the appellant could request the reimbursement of the sum of the public aid plus the interest and damages that may have been caused.
The acting Minister of Education of the Government of Navarra, Carlos Gimeno, has explained that his Department is not going to appeal the decision of the TSJN, although he has stressed that the decision does not go to the bottom of the matter and that it is only a measure precautionary
Likewise, Gimeno recalled that “a few months ago the Constitutional Court supported the constitutionality of non-financing” of the single-sex education centers included in the LOMLOE. In this sense, he has indicated that the resolution to terminate the concerts was on January 27, the appeal was established on March 15, and the Constitutional ruling was on April 19.
