The Government of the Generalitat led by Salvador Illa is ignoring the ruling last July by which the Supreme Court ordered the Generalitat to end the exclusion of Spanish on the signs of public schools in the autonomous community.
The Socialist Executive maintains and applies the so-called "Interior Space Signage Manual", which was last reviewed in 2007, during the tripartite Government that the PSC formed with ERC and ICV, and headed by José Montilla.
This official document establishes that "the language used in the signage [of the Generalitat buildings] is Catalan." The document literally highlights that "the use of bilingualism is not foreseen" and only admits that, "exceptionally, and in certain cases, a second language can be used", which collides with the ruling of the Supreme Court, which calls for widespread use of the two co-official languages in Catalonia, that is, Spanish and Catalan.
Furthermore, the Generalitat manual indicates that in those exceptional cases in which it is decided to use a second language in the labeling of its public buildings, "it must be applied under Catalan and in italics", to demonstrate its condition as a subordinate language and of lower rank than the autonomous language.
The Generalitat is using this manual to disobey the ruling of the Supreme Court, which annulled a section of the management plan for educational centers that the Generalitat approved in July 2022 and which established: "The labeling of the center's spaces is in the Catalan language; in Occitan, in Aran, and in the Catalan sign language if applicable, which are the reference languages of the educational system. The presence of other languages in the physical space of the center (walls, signs, etc.) is limited to the productions of the male and female students.
In response to an appeal from the Assembly for a Bilingual School, the Supreme Court determined that teaching cannot be limited to what is transmitted in the classrooms, nor to textbooks and other teaching materials, and that the physical space in which the educational activity takes place cannot be classified as something completely separate and unrelated to it, an argument alleged by the Generalitat.
"The configuration of the facilities of the educational centers are effectively the setting or landscape of the educational activity and, consequently, they form part of it. Perhaps not the most important part; but a relevant part, which should not be neglected," states the Supreme Court's ruling on the language of the signs and posters of schools and institutes, to highlight the need for these to also respond to the linguistic reality of the region, in which, according to the Constitution, Spanish and Catalan must coexist on equal terms. "It is not the same for the purposes of the vision of things that is transmitted to the students, a physical space where signs and posters are only in one or both languages of the corresponding Autonomous Community," added the Supreme Court.
Likewise, the ruling emphasizes that "Spanish is an official language throughout Spain, which means - among other things - that it is a language that cannot be excluded in communications between public powers and citizens." "Well," he adds, "the posters and signs that allow you to find your way around buildings belonging to the Administration - such as, without a doubt, publicly owned schools and institutes - constitute a way of communicating with the individuals who access them. Hence, it cannot be said that they are outside the linguistic co-official regime." "This means that excluding the use of Spanish for these purposes is not respectful of art. 3 of the Constitution, not to mention that it may introduce an unjustified difference in treatment in linguistic matters for the purposes of art. 14 of the constitutional charter itself," he concludes.
With this last statement, the Supreme Court implies that this marginalization should not occur in the offices of any other public body, even if it has nothing to do with the educational field. But this cornering continues to be carried out based on the "Manual of signaling of interior spaces" of the Generalitat.
