- The court has questioned Article 6.2 of the Law of Local Institutions of the Basque Country, approved in the Basque Parliament in 2016, as it considers that it may be contrary to the right of free use of Spanish established in the Spanish Constitution. This article provides for the possibility of receiving the minutes of the municipalities in Euskera.
According to the press release sent by the Council to the drafting of ARGIA, "the decision of the TSJPV gives continuity to the reactionary tendencies that are taking place in recent times from different courts and, in general, from the judiciary". This decision comes from the same room that in May of this year rejected the linguistic profiles of the job openings for the Municipal Police of Irun. By virtue of this decision, the Council convened a meeting before the High Court of Justice, warning that the judiciary, once again, wants to make language policy its competence, "by extracting it from the areas of political and parliamentary debate that belongs to it".
In this regard, Council Secretary General Paul Bilbao has denounced that he is carrying out a "renewed" reading of the current legal framework in order to "reduce by case-law the rights of Euskaldunes and their own language speakers in general in minority situations".
Regarding the current decision, the Council considers that the question raised by the court violates the principle of officiality, "it is confirmed that the rest of the official languages other than Spanish have a status of lower rank, that is, that the current officiality is not symmetrical". If the court's theses thrive, "it will be evident that the official languages are classified into two levels, Spanish and the rest", and pulling away from that thread, "it would be like separating first- and second-class citizens", explained the Council's spokesman.