The Supreme Court rejects stopping the regularization of immigrants and will not take the case to Europe

BarcelonaThe Supreme Court will not take the regularization of immigrants to the European justice system. As the high court has explained, it will not raise a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on the decree approved by the Spanish government to regularize the situation of 1.2 million immigrants. Along the same lines, the third chamber of the Supreme Court also dismisses applying the precautionary measure requested by the governments of the Generalitat Valenciana and Aragon, which involved suspending the regularization until the European justice system ruled. In summary, the Supreme Court will continue to study the appeals without resorting to the European justice system.

After the Spanish government approved the regularization, the Supreme Court expressed doubts about the legal fit of the decree within European law. In fact, it asked the parties to file with the CJEU "an interpretive preliminary ruling in relation to a series of points in the royal decree that could, in its case, conflict with the law of the European Union". The State's legal defense opposed resorting to the European justice system, but, on the other hand, the Valencian Country and Aragon did support this option. In fact, it is these two communities that challenged the regularization.

When the Supreme Court raised its legal doubts about the regularization, it focused on whether the decree contradicted the rules implementing the European Union's (EU) Migration and Asylum Pact, which entered into force on June 12. Furthermore, the court also considered whether it could clash with the EU's return directive and questioned whether irregular immigrants would be granted the right to temporary residence without being subjected to a return order, taking into account the exceptions set out in the community rule.

The Supreme Court also questioned whether the EU regulation allowed a state to adopt and apply a regularization process through a "sub-legal" decree. Finally, it warned of a potential clash with the Schengen Borders Code. The court recalled that a migrant who obtains a one-year temporary residence permit acquires the right to "freely circulate within the Schengen area" for 90 days within 180-day periods and doubted that they could do so without any prior coordination with the other EU member states being recorded.