The Supreme Court blocks the right to vote of those naturalized under the grandchildren law until they prove that they are descendants of exiles

MadridThe Supreme Court has acceded to the demands of Vox and Iustitia Europa –a non-parliamentary party common in cases involving the PSOE– and has temporarily suspended the right to vote for people who have obtained Spanish nationality through the Democratic Memory Law. It is a precautionary measure that it has adopted until it issues a final ruling and as long as Spanish consulates do not "issue an accrediting certificate" of their status as descendants of exiles: "Born outside of Spain, to a father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, who were originally Spanish, and who had suffered exile for political, ideological, or belief-based reasons, or for reasons of sexual identity and orientation, who had lost or renounced Spanish nationality". This is the exact phrase that appears in the Democratic Memory Law.

What the Supreme Court does is draw a distinction between this regulation, approved in October 2022, and an instruction published five days after the law came into force and signed by the Director General of Legal Security and Public Faith. The PP put it in the eye of the storm because she is the sister of Minister Óscar Puente. The instruction went further than the law and established that to obtain nationality, the status of exiles would be presumed for "all Spaniards" who left Spain between July 18, 1936, and December 31, 1955. It would only be necessary to prove the departure from Spanish territory by means of, for example, a passport stamp or marriage, birth of children, or death certificates.

Both Vox and the PP have rushed to react to the news on social media. “We were right,” Alberto Núñez Feijóo limited himself to celebrating on X. “The irresponsible thing was not to doubt the intentions of this government, the irresponsible thing would have been not to do so,” added the number 3 of the PP, Alma Ezcurra. The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, exclaimed that trying to “inflate the electoral rolls” is an “attack on the rule of law and democracy.” While the far-right, which has long been preparing the ground to question the result of the next Spanish elections, boasts of having managed to “suspend the attempt to manipulate the electoral roll to alter the elections.” From Moncloa, the Spanish government spokesperson, Elma Saiz, reacted shortly after the news became known: “We do not share the decision, but we trust in the impartiality of Justice”.

The hearing at the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court's decision comes 24 hours after a hearing was held to confront the arguments of Vox and Iustitia Europa with the positions of the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Spanish government. Jorge Buxadé, legal coordinator of the far-right party, justified that the suspension of the right to vote was necessary to “preserve the legality, objectivity, transparency and equality” of the electoral census and to prevent it from continuing to “increase in an anomalous manner”. For his part, Luis María Pardo, president of Iustitia Europa, argued that the “certainty of the democratic process” was “at stake” and defended that a future favorable ruling could not “reconstruct with certainty elections already held”.

In contrast, the State Attorney –representing the Spanish government– accused Vox and Iustitia Europa of basing themselves on “hypothetical and eventual risks” and maintained that suspending the registrations in the CERA would violate the right to active suffrage: “How could people who have acquired nationality through firm administrative acts be deprived of judicial rights?”, she asked.