It is often said that if someone fools you once, it is their fault; but if the same person fools you more than once, the fault is not theirs, but yours, for being naive.
It has been years since the Spanish judges of the Basque Autonomous Community began issuing judgements against the Basque language. Since then, there have been quite a few rulings against the requirement of knowledge of Basque for public workers. Without analyzing the linguistic ideology of these judges (although we suspect that they are not great defenders of the Basque language), it is clear that behind their sentences lies not only a linguistic ideology, but also legal arguments. That is to say, the sentences of these judges do not violate the law. This means that the legislation of the Basque Autonomous Community (the Basque Law and the Public Employment Law, in particular) has some loopholes regarding the linguistic requirements to be applied to public employees, and that the judges take advantage of these loopholes to dictate their judgements against the Basque language.
Has anyone ever wondered why judges in Catalonia or Galicia, with regard to the linguistic requirements for civil servants, do not rule against Catalan or Galician? Perhaps because in Catalonia or Galicia judges are nicer? We don’t think so. In Catalonia or Galicia all workers have to know Catalan or Galician to work in the public administration, and judges do not dispute that. Why is that? Because unlike the Basque legislation, the Catalan and Galician legislation is much clearer: their laws establish that knowledge of Catalan or Galician is indispensable to work in the public administration. Therefore, judges do not have any loophole to make a perverse interpretation of the law, as they do here.
We can spend many years crying, blaming the judges who hate the Basque language, calling rallies and demonstrations against the judicial harassment of our language ….. but without getting to the core of the problem. Because the core of this matter is evident: the law must be changed, to leave the anti-Basque judges without any legal hold.
It would be enough to modify a few articles of the Basque Law and the Basque Public Employment Law to put an end to the judicial harassment of our language. These modifications should clarify that, as in Catalonia or Galicia, knowledge of Basque is essential to work in the Basque public administration. We are not going to go into legal details in this article (there are good jurists in the Basque Country for that purpose). In the Parliament of the Western Basque Country there is a broad nationalist majority to carry out this legal change. All that is lacking is political will.
What are we waiting for? How long will we continue to lament and do nothing?
We believe that it is about time to denounce not only the position of the judges, but also the political laziness of some Basque political agents. The movement in favor of the Basque language must be activated and must put pressure on the Basque political parties, so that they put an end to this convoluted situation as soon as possible.
If the judges fool you once, it is their fault. But if again and again they do the same thing to you (you having mechanisms to avoid it) you are to blame for that situation, for being naive (or foolish).
