The High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) has upheld a request by a family at Institut Escola El Pi Gros in Sant Cebrià de Vallalta for their child’s school group to receive more teaching in Spanish.

The ruling affects that group at the Maresme school. It is the first time the TSJC has relied on the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECHR) recent decision concerning the 25% Spanish-language requirement when deciding a dispute over a school’s language of instruction.

The significance of the decision is that the Strasbourg court’s reasoning has now been used in a Catalan court case. The ECHR decision is not binding, and the Catalan government has said it does not change the education system’s regulations or apply across all schools.

The Strasbourg decision was published on 18 June

The ECHR published its decision on 18 June 2026, dismissing an application by families from Turó del Drac school in Canet de Mar. The families had challenged a TSJC order requiring at least 25% of teaching at the school to be delivered in Spanish.

  • The ECHR described Catalonia as a bilingual region in which Catalan and Spanish have equal official status.
  • It said Spanish is an official language throughout Spain and that excluding it as a language of instruction would deny pupils education in the state language.
  • The court’s decision did not annul Catalan’s role as the main language of instruction at Turó del Drac.
“Prohibiting the use of Spanish as a language of instruction would deprive Spanish citizens of their right to be educated in the national language,” the ECHR decision said.

The ECHR also found that education in the state language was important for equal access to Spain’s education system and for maintaining its unity. The TSJC has now cited that reasoning in the Sant Cebrià de Vallalta case, where the family had sought additional hours in Spanish.

Reported by Source Text Link, Gerard Fageda, Redacción, Marta Puig i Vidal, Rocío Casas Aparicio, Marc Guasch Ferreiro, Oriol Solé Altimira, Laia Galià, Joan Ridao, catalannews.com, ground.news, El Periódico, Adrià Asbert, agora.xtec.cat, Ajuntament de Sant Cebrià de Vallalta, Helena López, Diari ARA.