MADRID, 18 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The lawyer of the Cortes Generales Manuel Fernández-Fontecha has warned this Friday that the possible widespread use of the co-official languages ??in Congress needs some regulation because it affects the rights of deputies who do not know them, and may cause them defenselessness, because they need understand what is being said to guarantee the necessary parliamentary debate.
The new president of Congress, Francina Armengol, announced during the constitutive session of the XV Legislature that she will allow the use of Catalan, Galician and Basque in the plenary sessions of the Lower House, but Fernández-Fontecha has warned that it is a matter “complicated” for several reasons.
In an interview with RNE collected by Europa Press, the lawyer explained that the right to demonstrate in a co-official language “cannot be confused with the fact of that demonstration in a public law procedure, as is the case of parliamentary procedure”. .
“There is a facet that is being ignored: obviously there is a right to use the co-official language, but there is also a right for the remaining deputy to understand what is being said,” he stresses.
In other words, if this right to understanding is not guaranteed, “a procedural defect could be incurred in that there would not be a proper debate, because there is a party that would not understand the other.” “It is necessary to guarantee that the use of languages ??not known by other deputies does not make them defenseless”, the lawyer summarized.
In his opinion, Armengol’s announcement is “a manifestation of intentions”, but now it will have to be developed via reform of the regulations or at least by a resolution of the Presidency endorsed by the Board of Spokespersons.
As he recalled, article 70 of the Regulations of Congress, which does not establish a specific language, and that article 3 of the Constitution, which stipulates the co-official status of Catalan, Galician and Basque in their territories, but the practice of requiring Spanish in parliament.
“There is a norm, and we can call it the constitutional norm, by which the presidents, when someone speaks or tries to speak in a language other than Spanish, they are interrupted”, he continued, stressing that it is a norm certified by custom .
