The Supreme Court says that the amnesty law is "a real and serious danger" of conditioning the elections

BarcelonaThe Supreme Court considers that what is known as the Democratic Memory Law "generates a well-founded, real, and serious danger of potentially seriously affecting the objectivity and transparency of the electoral process," which could cause "irreversible damage" to the elections and, therefore, to an "essential element for the rule of law." The high court validates one by one the suspicions of the PP and Vox, which have long claimed that the Spanish government intends to manipulate the upcoming Spanish elections by granting nationality on a massive scale to relatives of republican exiles, especially in South America. "There is a risk of altering the electoral census through an exceptional increase in the number of new registrants in the electoral census of absent residents (CERA)," adds the interlocutory order –published this Thursday–, which provisionally suspends the registration process for the CERA until the challenge filed by the right-wing parties is resolved.

The high court insists that the "truthfulness, objectivity, and transparency of the process of electing representatives" in the elections "must govern and be present in all phases of the process," including in the "preparation and updating of the electoral census." Furthermore, the Supreme Court denies that the precautionary measures are "disproportionate", even though they affect "the right of participation" of people who have acquired Spanish nationality through the Grandchildren Law.

The Grandchildren Law guarantees Spanish nationality to the relatives of people who went into exile between July 18, 1936, and December 31, 1955. As stated in the Historical Memory Law, this specifically addresses those "born outside of Spain, to a father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, who were originally Spanish," and who suffered exile for "political, ideological, or belief-based reasons, or due to sexual orientation or identity" and "had lost or renounced" their Spanish nationality.

In this way, the Supreme Court's decision leaves the right to vote for the 600,000 people who have already obtained nationality via the grandchildren law (there are 2.4 million applications) in limbo and requests more time to study the substance of the appeal, which was presented by VOX and Iustitia Europa – an extra-parliamentary party common in cases surrounding the PSOE–. Furthermore, the chamber points out that the CERA census had 2,328,260 registered voters in the 2023 general elections, while on July 1st of this year it reached 2,736,522. That is to say, 408,262 more registered. However, in the last general elections, the vote from abroad only accounted for 0.8% of the total and only in 12 of the 50 provinces did it exceed 1%: the only seat that ended up being decided was in favor of the PP in the Community of Madrid. According to experts consulted by ARA, citizens living abroad are much less mobilized and have less context of current political affairs, which explains their low electoral participation. Furthermore, even if there were an uptick in mobilization, the fact of being dispersed by provinces –as a general rule, they are registered at their ancestor's last place of residence– greatly limits the ability to influence the results, even if the Supreme Court thinks otherwise.

Applause from the Spanish right

The Supreme Court's decision once again coincides with the demands of the PP and the Spanish far-right. Both had already applauded the precautionary suspension of the amnesty law on Tuesday –the court's arguments were made known this Thursday–, and, conversely, the PSOE and Sumar have criticized the decision. From the Moncloa, the Minister of the Presidency and Democratic Memory, Félix Bolaños, "respectfully" asks the Supreme Court to resolve the substance of the matter "as soon as possible" and, especially, before the 2027 elections.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Santiago Abascal have already celebrated the Supreme Court's precautionary measures. "We were right," the popular leader tweeted. And, regarding the Vox leader, who has long been preparing the ground to call into question the results of the upcoming Spanish elections, he showed himself to be proud of having managed to "suspend the attempt to manipulate the electoral census to alter the elections".