The mother of an ESO student at the Torrevigía Secondary Education Institute (IES) in Torrevieja filed a lawsuit in January 2023 against the resolution of the Department of Education to authorize the linguistic project of this center, which establishes the use of Valencian as a language. vehicular in 25.8% of the classes.
The plaintiff argued that the linguistic project approved by the Valencian Autonomous Administration violated the constitutional right of parents to choose the vehicular language in which they want their children to be educated, “given that it is determined by the teachers and by the management of the center, with parents having very little intervention and very little specific weight in the School Council as a collegiate body”.
The Contentious-Administrative Court number 3 of Alicante has dismissed the claim. In his argument, the magistrate who signed the ruling states that “the only minimum limit included in Autonomous Law 4/2018 is that the two co-official languages ??of the Valencian Community (Spanish and Valencian) must be used in a minimum percentage of the 25%; which is applicable in predominantly Spanish-speaking areas. There is really nothing in the lawsuit that allows us to declare disagreement with the Law of this percentage.”
In another paragraph of the ruling, the magistrate states “that parents are underrepresented on the School Council is an evaluative judgment of the plaintiff; respectable de lege ferenda, but legally inconsequential. In the litigated case, regarding the result of the vote, comfortably exceeding two-thirds of the number of members (only 4 votes against and one abstention), it can hardly be maintained that the representation of parents or guardians did not participate in the approval of the plan.
The judge explains that “we are facing an Institute of Secondary Education (IES) where the percentages of Valencians in ESO (where the appellant’s daughter is enrolled) exceed the legal minimum of 25% established by very little (25.8%). by article 6.3 of the Valencian Autonomous Law 4/2018; which implies compliance with the law, since what the norm considers minimum in a Spanish-speaking area such as Torrevieja becomes maximum”.
The ruling explains that “the Autonomous Decree 127/2012 wanted to establish a multilingual education program that, with regard to the territories with Castilian linguistic predominance, would mean, in addition to the teaching of the Valencian language subject, teaching another area in Valencian.”
The sentence can be appealed.
