Ruiz Piñeiro : No Need for Euskara

Today at Berria English:

A judge has no need to know Basque, according to Ruiz Piñeiro

He says judges need to know about justice and that knowing a co-official language can be regarded as an advantage

Eider Goenaga – DONOSTIA (San Sebastian)

Fernando Ruiz Piñeiro, the new President of the High Court of Justice of the BAC [Basque Autonomous Community of Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa], does not think that it is necessary to know Basque to be a judge in Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa. “For a judge to carry out his or her work, there is no need for him or her to know a co-official language. The only thing which is essential and which has priority in a judge’s work is a knowledge of justice and knowing how to apply it,” declared the former judge of the Spanish National High Court during the “El Punto” programme of the ETB2 channel (of the BAC television corporation).

According to Ruiz Piñeiro it is “essential” to stress this. Furthermore, the President of the BAC High Court pointed out that this is also stated in the current regulations and that Basque can be regarded as an advantage, but not as an indispensable obligation. “What the current regulations establish is that knowledge of a co-official language can be considered an advantage for certain specific posts; which is the case in regional law,” he explained. Ruiz Piñeiro was recently appointed to take over from Manuel Maria Zorrilla in the BAC High Court of Justice after competing for the post with another two judges, Jaime Tapia and Concepcion Marco Cacho; he will be taking up his post in February. In yesterday’s ETB2 television interview he spoke not only about Basque, but also on a range of other subjects, including the BAC Government’s Proposal to Reform the Statute [of Autonomy], the latest reform of the Criminal Code and the legal proceedings against Juan Maria Atutxa, Gorka Knörr and Kontxi Bilbao in the court he will be presiding.

The thing is, does he know about justice?

Because so far judges in Spain are nothing but repressive tools in the hands of the political class in Madrid.

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