The Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) considers that linguistic immersion in Catalan schools could only be applied if there was the option of two linguistic regimes, but not in a single system such as Catalan. It says so in the argumentation of the three sentences that last week already advanced that in three specific groups, at least one non-linguistic core subject should be carried out in Spanish, apart from the one in Spanish.
The court says that the presence of Spanish is “insufficient” and “inadequate” in the affected schools. It also points out that Law 8/22 and the decree law that established Catalan as the vehicular language and Spanish as the curricular language are unconstitutional. However, in this case it is not proposed to apply the sentence to the entire educational system, but only to the specific cases of students who have claimed it, so it is not necessary to present a question of unconstitutionality, it happened with the claims that sought to apply 25% of Spanish to the entire system.
According to the magistrates, linguistic immersion “could be viable” in a binary or language option system, but “it has limits in a single comprehensive model of free education for all students.” For this reason, he says that in a single system “we must respect the co-official nature of languages, and the right of students to receive a minimum of education in Spanish.”
The Minister of Education of the Generalitat, Anna Simó, said yesterday that the TSJC “is exceeding its functions, it is supplanting functions of the legislature” with these sentences and stated that “they go against the legal framework in Catalonia”. The Government announced that it will present an appeal before the Supreme Court.
