Promoció de l'euskera: interferència a un acomiadament? Sentència del Tribunal Suprem de 15 de juliol de 1986

Resum

According to the Basque Country's Statute of Autonomy, Basque is an official language and, as such, the institutions must guarantee its use and ensure its knowledge. Till 1983 the educational centres where Basque was being taught were privately run for the most part but in that year Euskaltegi Municipal, a public organism, was created with a view to spread the teaching of Basque among the adult population. The centres that transformed themselves in to public, homologated Euskaltegis, demanded the teachers who had been working for them, and who had a language degree that accredited their command of Basque, to meet a new requirement: they had to have a university degree. This article examines the case of the Euskaltegui Municipal in Eibar, whose teachers were dismissed from their jobs in 1985 because they refused to take the special, qualifying tests that had been designed in order to fulfil the new requirement. The most salient juridical aspects of those dismissals are discussed: the Supreme Court denied the alleged discriminatory charges and gave permission to annul the work contracts arguing that the workers had refused to comply with the «technical changes in the position» (a clause that could be interpreted varyingly). The case is compared with a parallel phenomenon taking place in Catalonia where, on a transitory basis, people who only had an accredited knowledge of the Catalan language were allowed to teach it. As a result of such an encouraging policy, the number of Catalan speakers increased rapidly and substantially. The author believes that the Supreme Court's decision goes against the political commitment to encourage the teaching of Basque. Knowledge of the Basque language should be given preferential treatment regardless of the possession of a university degree.