Deputies from Junts and ERC have reproached this Thursday the president of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) for having expressed himself in Spanish during his appearance in the Justice Commission of the Parlament, where Jesús María Barrientos has reeled off the judicial memory of 2020.
Although the magistrate has begun his intervention in Catalan, shortly after he has passed to Spanish. For this reason, the deputy Joaquim Jubert (Junts) has “cordially” asked him to “make the effort next time” to express himself in the first language, “and not just for five minutes. He is very far from what would be disgraceful for those who defend bilingualism».
This reproach has been joined by the Republican deputy Ana Balsera, who has also lamented that less than 7 percent of the judicial decisions that are issued in the territory are in the Catalan language.
For his part, Barrientos, a native of León, has responded: «I do it out of respect for you, because I am aware of the difficulties of using the language and the greater facility I have in conveying my message to you in Spanish. I could do it in Catalan, without a doubt, but I already admit that with greater difficulty and above all with much worse quality of communication, ”Barrientos has settled.
In addition, during his speech, the president of the TSJC has lamented that the use of Catalan in the administration of justice is “manifestly deficient” and has detailed that only 7 percent of the sentences handed down in Catalonia are written in Catalan, a fact “certainly devastating»: in 2021, 18,000 sentences were published in Catalan compared to 241,000 in Spanish.
Of course, he has also specified. He has also said that only in 14 percent of the lawsuits, whoever files them, marks Catalan as the preferred language to relate to the administration of justice.
For this reason, in addition to the work of the judges, he believes that “a general awareness of the entire system of collaboration with the justice system” is needed to use Catalan more in court.
