The Supreme Court raises the tone in the conflict with the Spanish government over the vote of those naturalized under the Democratic Memory Law. The high court has given a five-day deadline to ministers José Manuel Albares and Félix Bolaños to submit the list of the 163,020 people affected by the suspension of the vote for the Spanish elections on November 29th. They must send it to the Supreme Court, the Central Electoral Board, and the Electoral Census Office, and they have until Wednesday, October 28th, at 3:00 PM to do so. The contentious-administrative chamber of the high court does not stop there, but threatens the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes with a possible fine or, even, with criminal liability –which would have to be investigated by the criminal chamber– if they fail to comply with the requirement. The fine would be 1,000 euros and could be “reiterated” until the request is met.

Some cynic might come to believe that the magistrates of the Constitutional Court were left exhausted after clashing with those of the Supreme Court over the amnesty law, and no longer had the strength to contradict them in a new outrage, as or more democratically serious than the previous one. It concerns the precautionary measures imposed by the Supreme Court against the eighth additional provision of the democratic memory law, which in practice leaves the 163,020 people naturalized by virtue of this measure without the right to vote. The Constitutional Court (by a large majority, but with two dissenting opinions) has dismissed—as “premature”—the claim of the Ombudsman, who had filed an appeal to set aside the Supreme Court's decision, given that the period for allegations that the Supreme Court left open for this case is still ongoing. Some cynic, as we were saying, might come to believe that the Constitutional Court magistrates preferred to hide behind a technicality rather than aggravate the clash they are already maintaining with those of the Supreme Court (a clash that is also a terrible symptom, in this case of the politicization of justice and its reverse, which is the judicialization of politics).

The interlocutory order of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court that has applied the amnesty to Dolors Bassa, Jordi Turull, Oriol Junqueras and Raül Romeva is nothing short of a declaration of war. The Supreme Court says it has felt undermined by the Constitutional Court because the latter has “expanded” to limits “unprecedented in its history” its function as a guarantor of rights, even accusing it of “mutating” its role to become “a final instance with the capacity to review the interpretation of any legal norm subscribed by the Supreme Court”. 

The Constitutional Court does not, for the moment, authorize the vote for people nationalized under the Democratic Memory Law. The high court has halted the appeal for protection filed by the Ombudsman against the Supreme Court's decision to suspend the right to vote for all those who have not proven that they are descendants of exiles. Therefore, there will be 163,000 people with Spanish nationality – 0.41% of the census – who will not be able to vote in the general elections of November 29 if they do not prove that they meet the requirements. Ángel Gabilondo denounced that the Supreme Court's decision violates the rights to equality, to participation in public affairs, and to effective judicial protection. However, the court of guarantees considers that it is “premature” to study the appeal because the Supreme Court opened a period for allegations that has not yet ended. Once it has ruled again, after studying the complaints of those affected, the Constitutional Court could indeed agree to study an appeal for protection.

The Supreme Court has suspended the electoral rights of people naturalized under the clean law, a decision that the Spanish government has labeled as "extraordinary gravity" and which has generated a new political battle between the right and the left. While for the PP and Vox it is a way to guarantee the "cleanliness" of the November 29th elections, for progressives it is an unacceptable violation of fundamental rights. However, beyond the noise, what does the decision taken by the Supreme Court on Monday imply in practice? What must the Spanish government do to comply with the precautionary measures and exclude from the census the 163,020 people who have been naturalized through the so-called clean law? The greatest responsibility falls on the State's foreign service and the Electoral Census Office, which is the entity that must in practice suspend the vote of those affected.

One of the side plots of the turbulent season of Spanish politics this autumn is that of the misnamed grandchildren's law. The 2022 Democratic Memory Law provided for the recognition of Spanish nationality for descendants of those exiled for political, religious, or sexual orientation and gender identity reasons. Given the complexity of proving the reasons for exile, an instruction from the Ministry of Justice decided to apply the "presumption of exile" to all those who left Spain between July 1936 and 1955.

It has become a routine operation for civic entities—or directly parties—of the far-right or Spanish ultra-nationalists to take their political demands to the highest judicial instances, and for judges and prosecutors to take on the task of turning them into sentences or resolutions of mandatory compliance for citizens or institutions. This is what is known as the judicialization of politics, a mechanism that was greased and fine-tuned (“fine-tuned” was a key word) during the years of persecution and criminalization of the Catalan independence movement, and which has now reached cruising speed against all enemies of Spain that stand in its way, starting if necessary—as we have also been seeing for some years now—with the government of Spain itself.

The Supreme Court's decision to deny the vote to some 163,000 people who obtained nationality through the grandchildren's law has been interpreted as a declaration of war by the Spanish government. "It is of extraordinary gravity," exploded the Spanish government spokesperson, Elma Saiz, in the press conference following the council of ministers. "These are people who fled a country due to a dictatorship –she remarked–. In a democracy, the right to vote is guaranteed and not restricted".

Pedro Sánchez, at a rally in Ponferrada, lashed out at the Supreme Court for pressuring him to approve the grandchildren's law. A law that would allow the grandchildren of republican exiles to vote in Spain. Sánchez must think that the majority of these exiles, in Latin American countries, would vote for progressive options. But that is assuming a lot. Among them all there are those who would, of course. And surely there wouldn't be many who would vote for the PP, of course. But there would also be some—I am thinking of the grandchildren of Catalans—who might choose Catalanist options. In any case, the phrase he let slip was this: "Will the grandchildren of the exiles of Francoism not be able to vote, while the grandchildren of the Francoist regime will?"

A setback from the Supreme Court, once again, for the Spanish government. And, this time, on the eve of the November 29th elections and with a matter as delicate as the electoral roll. The high court decided this Monday to reject the appeal by the State Attorney's Office against the suspension of the right to vote for those naturalized through the so-called grandchildren law. An additional provision of the 2022 Democratic Memory Law that allows descendants of Spanish exiles to access nationality. In this way, it maintains the precautionary measures, requested by Iustitia Europa, which were issued on September 10th and which prevent these new citizens from voting if they do not individually prove that their predecessors actually left Spain for political reasons. In practice, ahead of the November 29th elections, this will affect 163,020 people who registered in the Electoral Roll of Absent Residents (CERA) until August 1st of this year, according to the electoral administration, and who had been granted nationality through this route – the date on which the census closes for the next general elections.

Shortly after the announcement of the election call, the PP's social media accounts circulated a video showing Minister Óscar Puente writhing in pain after breaking his leg. And the New Generations, one showing immigrants in Ceuta with the slogan: "Either them or us." These were two samples of where the party aspiring to govern Spain intends to take the campaign. Also on the same day, Isabel Díaz Ayuso and Vox asked their voters not to even think about voting by mail, thus sowing doubt about whether the current government is preparing a rigging. This is a scarecrow that the right has been waving for some time, with the idea of portraying Pedro Sánchez as an aspiring dictator.

In recent months, the PP and Vox have spread suspicions about alleged electoral fraud in two directions: postal voting and the right to vote of those nationalized through the Democratic Memory Law. After Isabel Díaz Ayuso took less than an hour once the Cortes were dissolved to recommend that people not vote by mail –a mistrust that the PP spokesperson has disavowed–, the focus is once again on the Supreme Court, which a month ago blocked the right to vote for thousands of people until they prove that they are descendants of exiles. Following the announcement of the 29-N elections, both Iustitia Europa and Vox have demanded that the Supreme Court act to ensure that the precautionary measures are complied with, since the electoral body called to vote in the elections was closed two months ago, before the high court took the measures. This morning, the Minister of the Presidency, Fèlix Bolaños, warned that if the Supreme Court maintains its decision, the 29-N census will be "altered" and would lose 400,000 people added to the Electoral Census of Absent Residents –CERA– since 23-J.

The 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.

The Supreme Court judge who drafted the interlocutory decision that blocks the right to vote for thousands of Spaniards who obtained nationality by availing themselves of the Democratic Memory Law –adopting the PP's thesis that the Grandchildren Law is a “founded, real and serious danger” that could “gravely affect the objectivity and transparency” of the elections– is an old acquaintance of the independence movement. He is Antonio Narváez, who was a magistrate of the Constitutional Court from 2014 to 2023 and, therefore, played a prominent role during the years of the 'Procés'. His name resonates in Catalonia because in February 2021 he stepped aside from the debate on the amparo appeals of the political prisoners against the October 1st ruling. He had to recuse himself after the pro-independence leaders collectively requested his disqualification due to words he had uttered in November 2017.

Sometimes information aligns in a way that creates front pages that concentrate the contradictions and complexities of a country. It is somewhat what happened to El País this Friday. The main headline is about the Supreme Court's decision to temporarily suspend the so-called grandchildren law, which grants the right to vote and nationality to the descendants of the republican exile: "The Supreme Court gives wings to Vox's theory of electoral fraud". The information is so relevant that the newspaper considered it necessary to also include the editorial on the front page, with a headline that leaves no room for doubt: "Legal absurdity".