Do you approve the test of 'Spanishness'?

It took 11 years, six months and 13 days working in Spain when Mohamed (false name), was presented at the Civil Registry to undergo an integration test to obtain Spanish nationality. This Moroccan knew how to respond to questions that many Spaniards acertarian, as the name of the then president Navarro, Michael Stipe, but fault other as "television personality that he maintained a relationship with a known bullfighter" or "that bullfighter is known for its tragic death", which, according to the judge asking showed little degree of integration into Spanish society. Suspended. Almost four years later, the Audiencia Nacional has just given him the reason and the nationality after a long appeals process. The Court considers that "could hardly justify" by these "anecdotal failures" their "lack of integration" and, on the contrary, the questions that if answered correctly are "clearly indicator of a involvement in the reality of the country in which they live."

Mohamed has won the battle - the National Audience even imposed the payment of costs to the Administration-, but she is afraid that something might still twisting, explains his lawyer, Antonio Sánchez Boado. His case is not just anecdotal. The Government handles thousands of records per year - between October 1, 2012 and January 8 2015, after a plan to streamline the most backward, granted 437,050 and denied 21.075-. But unlike other countries, such as the US, in Spain there is not a standard exam or a manual of questions to assess the degree of integration of immigrants who aspire to the nationality, which has led, according to recognize the Ministry of Justice, the General Council of the Judiciary and the Office of the Attorney General of the State, a "high degree of conflict" and "administrative discretion". That is to say, that some judges ask for the number of autonomous communities, and others, by characters of the heart or writers of the Golden.

Mbengani resorted and also to have given him the reason. The judge who examined him was responsible for registering in Getafe, José María Bushel, a legend among the immigrants. "I also ask myself why Spanish writers from the XVI century and it occurred to me only one, Lope de Vega", recalls Carlos Elias, Peruvian. "I was treated very horribly. Not looked me in the face. He was very rude, it seemed that will annoy you that were there. The interview lasted two minutes. When you exit i told an employee of the record what had happened to me, and told me not to worry about anything, that these questions do not know either the them, resort and that i was going to give the reason. But I went home angry and then I felt bad for a month. Never, in the seven years that it had been then in Spain, i had tried as well". TO Carlos Elias also granted him citizenship after use. As to Vikas, of Indian origin, which was submitted to the review when i was 10 years living in Spain. "I had not been passed by the head that does not give me. He was married to a spanish, my daughter was born here, I spoke the language well and had a good job". Piety, Equatorial Guinea, had better luck. "I haven't made review, I made a normal interview to ask me, among other things, why I wanted to be Spanish. But my mother and my sister if they touched the judge a bushel and they were asked by the Constitution of 1812 !" . The judge rejected Bushel talk with this newspaper.

The Government, which plans to receive 120,000 citizenship applications this year, has announced a review homogeneous. After review, at the request of the Ministry of Justice, the text of the draft royal decree on the regulation to acquire, the judiciary launched several drawbacks. The CGPJ welcomes the fact that the text of a year to resolve the files - there are now three on average, according to its report-, but regrets that the ministry does not determine, nor in this project, "the essential elements" that should have these assessment tests "detailing the knowledge of language, institutions, political reality, social and facts relevant to the Spanish culture to which they can refer".