ABSTRACT

 

DECISION OF THE SPANISH CONSTITUTIONAL COURT 50/1999, 6th APRIL, 1999 (supl. BOE 100, 27th April, 1999)


 

The Constitutional Court has decided the partial allowance of two accumulative appeals for uncostitutionality, num. 521/1993 and 547/1993, respectively submitted by the Board of Counsellors of Castilla y León and the Generalitat of Catalonia, against several dispositions of the Act 30/1992, 26th November, on the juridical System of Public Administrations, and on the Common Administrative Procedures.

 

According to article 36.2 of the aforementioned legal text, any document issued by an Autonomous Community which may be effective in other Autonomous Communities, should be translated into Spanish. Likewise, article 36.3 states that any files coming from Autonomous Communities with an official language other than Spanish should also be translated into Spanish by the corresponding instructive Public Administration.

 

Such legal provisions were reformed by means of the 4/1999 Act, 13th January, on the modification of the 30/1992 Act, which regulation states the unnnecessary translation of documents in those cases in which both of the implied communities share the same official language.

 

Nonetheless, the Generalitat of Catalonia's claim for unconstitutionality (article 3.2 of the Spanish Constitution) still refers to these articles in relation to their validity concerning the documentation issued after the enforcement of the law, and the obligation to translate any document in any case, as well as in relation to the contravening of the Catalan Statute of Autonomy concerning the obligatory translation into Spanish of those documents effective in two Autonomous Communities sharing the same official language. The decision of the Constitutional Court has partially estimated these appeals, and consequently:

 

1) The subparagraph included in article 17.1, so as articles 23.1, 23.2, 24.1, 24.2, 24.3, 25.2, 25.3, 27.2, 27.3 and 27.5 do not have a basic nature, by which they are all contrary to the constitutional order of competences;

2) The second paragraph of article 36.2, and article 36.3 of the aforementioned law are constitutional;

3) Dismissal of the rest of the appeal's contents.

 

In relation to this decision, there is a dissenting vote made with respect to the interpretation of the decision

 

Madrid, 6th April, 1999.