The provisions of the Spanish Constitution in linguistic matters have been concretized thanks to the fundamental work of the Constitutional Court, who through his jurisprudence has played a key role in the legal reception of the model of linguistic officiality established in the Fundamental Rule. Thus, the constitutional ordering of linguistic pluralism in our country has been the subject of more than seventy pronouncements by the Constitutional Court.

One of the characteristic features of constitutional litigation is that it has been mainly concerned with pronouncing on the constitutionality of laws in resources and issues of constitutionality or in positive conflicts between the central State and the Autonomous Communities, rather than in remedies for conflicts between individuals and public authorities. This has resulted in a wealth of jurisprudence that has been concerned with determining the scope of action of each public administration.

The jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court has been concerned with concretizing key issues of the linguistic model such as the notion of «official language», absent from the fundamental norm, or the establishment of the criterion of territoriality as a delimiter of the officiality. Thus, a language is considered official when, regardless of its reality and weight as a social phenomenon, it is recognized by the public authorities as a normal means of communication in and between them and in their relationship with private subjects (SSTC 82/1986, of 26 June and 46/1991, of 28 February).

Likewise, the Court has enshrined the territoriality as a criterion for determining the official status. This implies that, unlike Spanish, which is the official Spanish language throughout the State, the rest of the official languages are exclusively in the Autonomous Community where they are declared as such in accordance with their Statute of Autonomy. The consecration of the principle of territoriality implies that it is co-official with respect to all public powers located in the autonomous territory, without excluding the organs dependent on the General Administration of the State and other linked or dependent organs located in that territory.

The Constitutional Court has also dealt with the distribution of competences between the Central State and the Autonomous Communities in linguistic matters, with significant jurisprudential evolution as the Constitutional Court’s jurisdiction has developed. Autonomic systems of cooficiality in the whole state. Thus, since STC 87/1997, of April 24, the Court has recognized an “authorization” or “mandate” in linguistic matters for the Autonomous Communities with co-official languages to regulate the essential aspects and carry out promotional activities, specifying that the conflicts that arise must be resolved by seeking a balance between the autonomous competence of linguistic normalization and the sectoral competences held by the State.

These are some of the characteristic notes of the linguistic co-functionality model that the Constitutional Court has been taking care to clarify over the past decades. Along with them, the constitutionality of numerous rules that affect the language regime in many areas of public policy has been judged.

Thus, the thematic areas on which constitutional jurisprudence in the field of official languages has been projected are diverse given the heterogeneity of the rules that contain provisions on this matter. Thus, the High Court has been responsible for defining the model of linguistic co-functionality in areas such as the Administration of Justice, education and teaching, access and regulation of the public service, the media or relations between consumers and entrepreneurs.

All in all, a cast is presented with the main judgments of the Constitutional Court, fundamental in the work of concretizing and delimiting the constitutional model both of the general regime of linguistic co-responsibility and of the subjects in which there are thematic provisions on the subject. A summary table with the main pronouncements, indicating the sectoral area to which they refer and a summary of the interpretation of the Constitutional Court are presented as an annex to this report.