La competència de la Generalitat en matèria de normalització lingüística confirmada pel Tribunal Constitucional

Resum

In a ruling of 21st April last, the Constitutional Tribunal resolved the dispute over competence 649/84 moved against article 3 of the Generalitat of Catalonia decree 125/84 by the Spanish Government. This decree develops in part article 10 of the Linguistic Normalization Law of 18/4/83 which sets out provisions for cases in which legal documents are written in both official languages. The contested article contains certain guidelines for deciding which of the two texts should prevail in cases where there is doubt as to the interpretations of both texts. The Spanish Government only contested article 3, claiming that the competence to lay down the norms contained in the article lies with the State. However, the Constitutional ruling establishes that, in views of the Generalitat's competence regarding linguistic normalization, competence to lay down norms lies with the Generalitat of Catalonia al- though it also makes clear that competence in cases of the regulation of public documents is with the State. In short, the above ruling goes beyond the actual limits of the norm contested by the State and returns to the 1986 doctrine which granted the Generalitat exclusive competence in questions of linguistic normalization, even in matters in which competence lies in the State.