What you need to know about the postponement of the elections

BarcelonaIf there are no last-minute changes, the Catalan Government will decide this Friday to postpone the February 14 elections. According to the executive, the current situation of the pandemic means citizens' right to vote cannot be guaranteed. This is why it has sought the consensus of the parties to postpone them until May. However, the decision places Catalonia in legal limbo.

The decision to postpone

There is no legal provision, but there are precedents

Postponing the elections is not provided for in the electoral law and, therefore, there is no rule that the Generalitat can use to postpone the elections. However, this does not mean that the Government cannot do it: the jurists consulted agree that the fact that elections were postponed in the Basque Country and Galicia -no one challenged it- already provides coverage for doing so if it is "very justified". Alba Nogueria, professor of administrative law at the University of Santiago de Compostela, assures the ARA that the suspension of the Basque and Galician elections was already done "outside the law" at the time, with the connivance of the Electoral Board and the Spanish government, so she does not see why it could not be done now in Catalonia. The professors of constitutional law Enoch Albertí and Xavier Arbós also agree: it can be done if the reason why the elections cannot be held "with all the guarantees" is "very well justified".

Final decision?

The decree of the Generalitat can be challenged before the Catalan High Court or the Constitutional Court

The Government's decision, however, is subject to review. The decree postponing the elections can be challenged by all political parties that have come forward and who demonstrate a "legitimate interest" in the procedure. The place to do so would be the Catalan High Court. Arbós also points out that the Spanish government could challenge the decree in the Constitutional Court on the claiming the decision is beyond the Catalan government's jurisdiction and seek to suspend the postponement of the elections in order to maintain the February elections. The Electoral Board would have no role in this matter.

Starting from scratch

The Government has to call the new elections 54 days in advance

In order to postpone the elections, the vice-president, Pere Aragonès, has to sign a decree suspending the February elections. Despite the executive's intention to include a new date in this decree, both Albertí and Arbós say that it would not be strictly necessary taking into account that it was not done neither in Galicia nor in the Basque Country -there it was linked to the end of the state of alarm and to the improvement of the pandemic-. They believe, however, that the Government gives "more guarantees" if it already sets a horizon. In any case, Albertí points out that the new elections -previously in May- must be called with a new decree 54 days before the scheduled date.

Would it be a new electoral process? Will the current candidacies be valid already? Do the parties that are running for the first time have to collect signatures again? Nogueira argues that they do, since this was the case in Galicia and the Basque Country. Although the Xunta first assumed that it would pick up the electoral process where it left off (some had already voted by mail), the authorities - after consulting the Electoral Board - decided to start from scratch. Nogueira stresses that it is key to update the census so that new adults can vote or stand for election.

New postponement?

Albertí advises legal reforms to guarantee the vote in a pandemic

If the Government postpones the elections this Friday because of the pandemic, Albertí warns that the reason for postponing the elections can be maintained in three months. In May, will it be possible to guarantee everyone the vote, including those infected? How will voters be protected when they go to vote? Albertí regrets that with the Basque and Galician precedent of last March, legal reforms which are necessary to adapt the vote to the covid-19 have not been made in the Catalan and Spanish Parliaments. He asks that now "time should be used" to avoid a repetition of such a situation in the spring.