The Irún City Council discriminated against Spanish speakers when in 2017 it imposed the knowledge of Basque in a call for twelve positions in the Local Police. Almost seven years later, the appeal filed by an excluded interim officer has become the judicial standard against the imposition of Basque in all public positions in the Basque administrations, the goal of unions like LAB and parties like EH Bildu. The Basque Country High Court (TSJPV) condemns the socialist City Council to bear the costs of a long judicial dispute and obliges it to activate a new job offer that can be adapted to the change in regulations made by the Basque Government in the last weeks of the term of the lehendakari Íñigo Urkullu.
The Irún case has marked the legal position of Basque judges in the face of a dozen appeals filed by officials and interim workers who saw their constitutional rights violated for not proving knowledge of Basque. The City Council led in 2017 by José Antonio Santano - currently Secretary of State for Transport - approved resolution 2,566 of December 19, 2017 of the Irún City Council, which approved the regulatory bases of the process to fill twelve positions as Local Police officers. All positions required demonstrating a B2 level of Basque.
An interim official asked the Irún lawyer Francisco Ignacio López Lera to appeal, first administratively, and then before the judges, claiming to be discriminated against by this imposition of Basque.
A Court of First Instance ruled in favor of this imposition, but the Basque Country High Court in May 2021 and the Supreme Court in July 2023 established that Basque should not be required in all public positions to ensure that all citizens can be served in Basque.
"It is not necessary for all municipal police officers to know Basque to guarantee citizens their right to interact with the Administration using that language, as it would be sufficient for one member of each pair and some of the officers attending the public to know the language," the two courts pointed out as the main argument. The judgments warned of the violation of constitutional principles such as the one recognizing equality to access public positions (article 23).
The initial appeal was filed by lawyer López Lera when the Official Gazette of the Historical Territory of Gipuzkoa had called for the bases but this public job offer had not been activated. The Irún City Council decided to move forward with the selection of the twelve local police officers despite the appeal, and the courts did not accept the precautionary measure requested by the appellant to suspend the job offer. Almost seven years later, the twelve police officers who obtained their positions with bases declared illegal find themselves in a complex legal situation that the Irún City Council will have to resolve.
"I have felt like a Quijote fighting against windmills," says López Lera, the former local police officer who decided to bet everything on advocacy and who has become the target of "veiled threats" on social media. Labeled as an "enemy of Basque" for assuming the representation of an interim official, López Lera regrets the harm that these twelve local police officers may suffer, as they were not informed about the ongoing judicial processes. "Everything could have been stopped," López Lera notes, very critical of the "malpractice of the administration."
The Irún case has become the cornerstone of a dozen legal processes initiated by Spanish-speaking officials who have fought for their rights before the courts. The Basque Country High Court has established as a criterion in all of them that Basque language proficiency should not be required in all public positions, but that it is the responsibility of the administration to organize services to facilitate that any official can assist a Basque-speaking citizen.
Political parties like PNV and EH Bildu, Basque nationalist unions, and groups dedicated to the promotion of Basque have criticized Basque judges and organized a demonstration that took place through the streets of Bilbao on November 4th, in which, according to the Local Police, more than 70,000 people participated. The judgments were labeled as "attacks on Basque" and institutions such as the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council systematically appealed them to the courts.
The Government of lehendakari Íñigo Urkullu accelerated throughout the last months of the previous term a new decree for the use of Basque in public administrations and companies that flexibilizes the linguistic profiles required and establishes a period of nine years for practically all Basque officials to use Basque as a working language and to interact with citizens.