The Spanish Constitutional Court said Thursday the government of Catalonia overstepped its authority in prohibiting bullfighting, ruling it can regulate the sport but not ban it.
Photo by Christiancanano/Wikimedia
MADRID, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Spain's Constitutional Court overturned a ban on bullfighting in Catalonia that's been in place since 2010.
In an 8-3 decision made public Thursday, the court said the Catalan government has the power to regulate the sport but not to ban it. The government's ban is unconstitutional, the court said, because bullfighting is part of Spain's cultural heritage, as declared in national laws, and "one more expression of a cultural nature that forms part of the common cultural heritage." It added Catalonia could "regulate the development of bullfights" or "establish requirements for the special care and attention of fighting bulls," but that the government exceeded its authority by banning the sport.
Although bullfighting can now legally return, officials in Catalonia are reluctant to see it emerge again, government spokeswoman Neus Munte said, commenting the government will "set to work immediately to ensure that the ruling has no practical effect."
"Barcelona has been an anti-bullfighting city since 2004," Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau said. "Whatever the court says, the Catalan capital will not allow animals to be mistreated."
"The constitutional court can decide what they want," Josep Rull, Catalonia's minister for public works said in a statement, "but we have already decided that there will be no bullfights in Catalonia. The government of Catalonia will make every effort for bullfights not to return to our country. We want a country where it is not possible to make a public spectacle of death and suffering to an animal. This is what we decided at the time in Catalonia and is unalterable for us."
Critics have noted that Catalonia's ban on bullfighting was intended more as a snub of the Spanish government than a stand in support of animal rights, the British newspaper The Guardian said. Pressure from anti-nationalist, pro-independence movements in Catalonia led to the ban, as well as a general decline in the popularity of the sport. Spanish Culture Ministry statistics indicate a decline in bullfights in Spain from 953 in 2007 to 398 in 2014.
Notably exempt from the ban was the correbous, a Catalonian tradition in which bulls run with flares or flaming torches attached to their horns.
