The Supreme Court must guarantee the right of people who plead before it to use the language of the autonomous community where they already reside receive communications from the judiciary in one of these languages.
This measure, which will require the higher court to be staffed by translators and interpreters (with the corresponding costs and delays, in addition to the problems linked to the fact that other parties do not know the co-official language), is included in the Organic Law of the Right to Defense definitively approved this Thursday.
The law will come into force 20 days after its publication in the BOE. Its content is the same as that approved by the plenary session of the Congress on July 17.
The President of the Senate suspends the plenary session because of DANA
Several amendments had been presented to the Senate, some of which specifically requested the elimination of linguistic co-officiality at the Supreme Court.
But the Commission of Spokespersons and the Speaker of the House, Pedro Rollán, decided last Wednesday suspend, following DANA, the plenary session during which the amendments were to be debated.
This had the consequence that This Thursday, the two-month deadline expired available to the Senate to amend a bill originating from Congress.
Rollán informed the senators of the suspension of the plenary session and that “once the Senate will not speak, will have the effect of final approval [del proyecto de ley] and will be sent for publication” in the Official State Gazette.
Thus, with the Organic Law of Defense Law, a new regime of personal rights will come into force, which includes “in proceedings before competent bodies throughout the territory of the State, [el derecho] to use one of the official languages of the autonomous community where they reside or where legal proceedings have been initiated, as well as to receive communications produced in one of these languages” (article 10.d).
The measure affects the Supreme Court as well as the National Court. However, in this case the use of interpreters is already common (especially Basque in cases of terrorism), so the provision that communications must be written in the co-official language will have more impact, which is not currently the case.
Pact with the nationalists
The bill that the Government sent to Congress on January 25either It did not contain a provision relating to the use of co-official languages in judicial bodies under state jurisdiction.
It was the parliamentary group of Together for Catalonia who presented an amendment to add that “all natural and legal persons have the right to use any of the official languages of the autonomous communities in the judicial bodies that have jurisdiction over the entire State.”
The amendment was not adopted by the PSOE during the presentation phase. However, the Socialists agreed to a compromise amendment with Junts, ERC and BNG when the opinion on the bill was debated in the Congressional Justice Commission on June 26.
During this debate, the spokesperson for the Popular Group, María Eugenia Carballedo, spoke out against this proposal. “Mr. Sánchez has already crossed many red lines in matters of justice, practically all of them,” he said. “But it remains a very big challenge, that of approving the ancient claim of the languages, not in the judicial bodies of the autonomous communities, no: in the trials before the competent bodies throughout the State. Who will pay for the party? interpreters, translators?
Representative Maria del Mar González, who spoke on behalf of the Popular Group during the final debate of the law in the Plenary Congress, criticized the socialists for having “introduced as transfer to its partners, as is customarythe use of different languages throughout the territory.
“What is happening in this Congress and the high cost that it entails should be telling enough,” he added.
PNV spokesperson Mikel Legarda responded: “We do not agree with the fact that in the Commission a parliamentary group declared that this constituted blackmail for independence. Perhaps if we saw things in a more natural way, we could effortlessly conclude that it is simply a right of individuals, aligned with the best respect for the Constitution, while in its Article 3 proclaims that the different official languages are a cultural heritage subject to particular respect and protection, and in its preamble it proclaims the desire to protect all the cultures and languages of the peoples of Spain.
“There is no doubt that the provisions of the bill, regarding the use of official languages in proceedings before competent bodies throughout the State, contribute significantly to this constitutional desire and objective,” he said. -he added.
No votes against
Despite criticism, the bill was approved in Congress without any vote against. It was adopted with 178 votes in favor and 170 abstentions from popular groups and Vox.
During the senatorial process, the PP presented an amendment to delete letter d) of article 10. But the suspension of the plenary session in which, with certainty, it was going to be approved, determining the return of the project to the Congress, The result was that the law ultimately remained as it came out of the Lower House.
