Catalan Language Appeal to be Heard in Court

 

In December of last year Spain's Supreme Court ordered that the Regional Government of Catalunya must place priority on teaching Castilian in schools, ahead of the regional Catalan language.

The court also instructed that schools must communicate with parents in Castilian if this was requested.

The instruction had previously been made to the regional government in lower courts, but had been continually ignored.

However, today the Catalans are due to formally appeal against the ruling, which the regional president, Artur Mas, has described as "an assault on the Catalan language" in schools.

Almost all members of the Catalan government have united in defence of their teaching methods, whereby Catalan is taught almost exclusively, with their Councillor for Education, Irene Rigau, commenting : "If I have to leave politics because of the language model, I will."

Elsewhere the Regional Government's spokesman, Francesc Homs, declared the status of the regional language as being "non-negotiable" despite the ruling by the Supreme Court.

The deputy secretary general of the CDC (Democratic Convergence of Catalonia) Oriol Pujol, went as far as referring to the court order as being part of a conspiracy between the PP and PSOE against the ruling Catalan parties. He too refused to consider a change to the teaching methods of the region's schools, calling them "untouchable" and suggesting that any future collaboration with the PP would be at risk if they did not reconsider their stance on the issue.

The subject has caused disagreements across the various political parties in Catalonia at a high level and is unlikely to go away without the intervention of the national political parties.