The sister of minister Puente, singled out by the PP and Vox: "In my world, he is the brother of Sofía Puente"

BarcelonaThe Spanish right and far-right are determined to torpedo the so-called grandchildren law, the provision that the Spanish government included in the Democratic Memory Law so that the descendants of exiles can obtain nationality. The political crusade of the PP and Vox against the legislative text, which they describe as an instrument of Pedro Sánchez to alter the electoral census, has reached the courts and the Supreme Court has already blocked the right to vote for the newly naturalized. But this is not the only political and judicial derivative of the law. At the center of the criticism, and the lawsuits, is the name of Sofía Puente, a career prosecutor, a high-ranking official in the Spanish government and, also, the sister of the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente.

Responsible for an instruction that expanded the criteria for beneficiaries of the rule to access nationality, the current secretary general at the Ministry of Justice defended this Monday in an interview with RTVE that her kinship with the minister is what led both Vox and the ultra entity Hazte Oír to file a complaint against her for prevarication and usurpation of functions. "I am convinced that if my name were not Puente, the discussion would have developed in strictly legal terms [...] But effectively I am the sister of whom I am and all this is part of this kind of conspiracy according to which we are all instruments at the service of Sanchismo," she said. At the same time, however, she vindicated her long career in the administration of justice and the Spanish government, prior to the rise of the head of Transport, and concluded: "In my world, he is the brother of Sofía Puente".

The instruction that the right-wing parties are using to file a lawsuit against her was issued four days after the approval of the grandchildren's law, in October 2022. At that time, Sofía Puente was the Director General of Legal Security and Public Faith. While the initial text of the regulation established access to nationality for children or grandchildren of Spaniards who lost their nationality as a result of having suffered "exile for political, ideological, or belief-based reasons, or due to sexual orientation and identity," the instruction signed by Puente specified that, by default, the status of exile was recognized for all persons who left Spain between July 18, 1936, and December 31, 1955. Four years later, Sofía Puente continues at the Ministry of Justice, but now as the Secretary General for Innovation and Quality of the Public Justice Service.