The Supreme Court maintains for November 29 the suspension of the vote of those naturalized by the 'grandchildren law'

MadridA setback from the Supreme Court, once again, for the Spanish government. And this time, on the eve of the November 29th elections and with an issue as delicate as the electoral roll. The high court decided this Monday to reject the State Attorney's appeal against the precautionary measures adopted against the law on descendants and which suspended the right to vote for those naturalized through a specific route of the Democratic Memory Law. In this way, it maintains the veto, requested by Vox and Iustitia Europa, on the right to vote for these new citizens, who according to the administration would number 163,020 people for the November 29th elections and who are registered in the Electoral Census of Absent Residents (CERA) until August 1st of this year—the date on which the census closes for the upcoming general elections.

These individuals are the naturalized citizens whom the Spanish government calculates have accessed nationality through the 2022 Democratic Memory Law, but among them, it is not specified how many arrived through the ministerial order that developed the law and which is currently in question in the courts. While the rule specifies that those who are descendants of exiles for political or ideological reasons may be Spanish, the subsequent order presumes that all those who left between 1936 and 1955 are. To preserve the "purity" of the electoral process, the Supreme Court argues that before granting them the right to vote, this point must be clarified and reproaches the administration for not having provided more information to make the corresponding distinctions. For this reason, the Supreme Court decided to maintain the veto that it had already issued before the early calling of the elections, on September 10th, because it considers that there is a risk of "irregularly constituting" the census. It interprets that the "general interest of preserving the purity of the electoral process" must prevail.

In the high court's interlocutory order, to which ARA has had access, three different moments of the right-to-vote process are distinguished to define the scope of the precautionary measure. The Supreme Court separates the moment of acquisition of nationality through being a descendant of an exile, from the registration in the CERA and the final assignment to an electoral constituency. Thus, it suspends only the registration in the external census to limit its electoral effects.

Both the Public Prosecutor's Office and the State Attorney's Office had requested that the precautionary measures be lifted given the "material impossibility" of reviewing the nearly 170,000 files affected by the measure adopted by the Supreme Court. A matter which the high court ignores and attributes to the lack of responsibility of the administration itself. In fact, it labels as "surprising" that the electoral administration cannot individually identify under what circumstances the affected persons accessed nationality, bearing in mind that a month ago, on September 10, when the Supreme Court issued the first precautionary measures, it asked to differentiate those new Spaniards who had proven to be descendants of exiles and those who had simply accessed nationality because their ancestors left Spain between 1936 and 1955—which the ministerial order assumed in practice was for political reasons.

However, not everyone within the Supreme Court shared the decision. There is a dissenting opinion from magistrate María Alicia Millán who disagrees with the majority and believes that the November 29 call for elections should have led to a rethink of the precautionary measures regarding the law for grandchildren. She argues that the elections introduced a "new and decisive element" and that the deprivation of the right to vote in imminent elections is an "irreversible" measure. "In such circumstances, the preservation of the effective exercise of the fundamental right to political participation should have prevailed over the maintenance of a provisional measure sustained by a legal controversy still pending final resolution," she concludes.

Unrest in the Spanish government

This Sunday, the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, at a pre-campaign rally, demanded that the Supreme Court stop the "attempted abuse" by the Spanish right, which is calling for limits to be placed on the democratic memory law regarding the creation of new Spanish citizens. However, the Supreme Court has decided to maintain the decision, which has irritated the Spanish government, many of whose ministers were at the Royal Palace reception presided over by the King and Queen for the 12th of October. In fact, executive sources assure that the State Attorney General's Office will study whether it can appeal the decision to the Constitutional Court, as it considers that there is an infringement of fundamental rights. "It seems that the right to vote is not so relevant for some," government sources also added.

The Supreme Court's decision marked part of the informal conversations that took place at the Royal Palace after the military parade for Hispanic Day. In an informal conversation with journalists, the Spanish president himself defended that being Spanish implies having the right to vote and that there cannot be first- and second-class citizens. On the contrary, for the leader of the PP, Alberto Nuñez Feijóo, this is not the issue; rather, it is that through the order developing the democratic memory law, it went beyond the descendants of exiles when granting nationality. For this reason, also in an informal conversation with journalists at the Royal Palace, he expected a "consequent decision" from the Supreme Court regarding the precautionary measures it had already adopted.

Later, he publicly celebrated the decision, together with Vox. "In an election, there can be no doubts about the census," he stated on X. In Feijóo's view, the Supreme Court is placing "limits on the irresponsibility" of the Spanish government, which is creating legal "blunders." On the other hand, for the PSOE, this decision by the high court will mean that the "grandchildren of the Francoist exiles will not vote, but the Francoists will." After the announcement of November 29th, the judiciary is bursting with force into the electoral process.