Legal blow to Armengol Government for demanding the Catalan title of hospital and health centre guards. The Contentious Administrative Court number 2 of Palma ruled in favour of a group of 24 guards who, in 2021, had challenged the measure requiring a B1 level of Catalan after being excluded from the interim pool. This is the first condemnation of the Armengol government for the demand for Catalan from health personnel.
The guards had registered on the list called in 2018 by the Ministry of Health, where only the basic Catalan qualification, A2, was required, a qualification that could be accredited once the selection of personnel was completed. Subsequently, the government of the left pact chaired by Armengol modified the criteria and the process had already begun increased the level of Catalan required of all health personnel. It now imposes B1 Catalan as an essential requirement.
Then, the Ministries of Health chaired by the socialist Patricia Gomez, modified the bases of the call to prepare the pool of temporary workers and Around 2,500 people were removed from the list because they did not have the B1 certificate.
A group of 24 defenders excluded from the interim group opted for legal action and now the Court has ruled in their favour by reviewing the decision on the change of criteria regarding the Catalan’s nullity requirement. The judge says that The criteria that marked the initial call to prepare the interim pool could not be modified by order of the Ministry of Health.
The change in criteria regarding a greater requirement for knowledge of Catalan, according to the judge, could be applied to new candidates but never to those already admitted to the pool. Some of the dismissed temporary workers had worked for years for the public health of the Islands.
In August last year The Prohens government has removed the Catalan requirement for all healthcare workers. Today, the current Ministry of Health has opposed the appeal presented by the guards, claiming that once the legal requirement is removed, they lose their meaning.
However, the Justice considers that it is not enough for the goalkeepers to re-apply to the interim pool but that the Government must put them back in the situation that prevailed before their exclusion. The judgment argues that the decree issued by the ministry in 2021 had no support and could not change the criteria that had been adopted for the scholarship.
The guards filed a complaint through the law firm Florit Abogados. Now the magistrate Alexandro Gonzalez upheld the appeal and invalidated the controversial decision of the Armengol government.
According to the judge, the resolution issued by the Ministry of Health on November 24, 2021 was irregular since the requirements previously established in July 2018 could not be modified, the date on which the provisional pool was created.
According to the judge, the modification of the bases violated the rights acquired by the plaintiffs. The judge added that if by political decision a higher level of Catalan was required, this should have been done through the proper procedure, and not by this inappropriate decision of the Ministry of Health.
In accordance with the sentence, as explained by the lawyer Ernesto Florit, It is not possible to impose new requirements on candidates who are already part of a pool, as this would violate their acquired rights if they prove the requirements initially required.
The decision can be appealed to the Ministry of Health before the TSJB, but it obliges the administration to update the general pool of guards by including again the guards who have submitted the appeal and without modifying the level of Catalan initially required.
This decision sets a precedent. As published by OKDIARIO, a group of doctors from the Can Mises hospital in Ibiza lost their jobs due to the lack of a Catalan certificate. This is a similar case since the Armengol government changed the rules of the opposition competition while the procedure was already underway. In the initial call, it did not require Catalan, but then it changed its mind and, without informing the candidates, it imposed the requirement of Catalan.
The doctors concerned passed the competition but found themselves without a place because they did not have a certificate of knowledge of Catalan, which was not initially required of them.
