The Constitutional Court upholds ban on Women's marches in Madrid

This Monday, the plenary of the Constitutional Court (CC) has endorsed the ban on the 8-M demonstrations in Madrid issued by the Delegation of the Spanish government in the Spanish capital. As reported by ACN, in an emergency resolution the magistrates have denied the precautionary suspension of the ban requested by an appeal from unions UGT and CCOO. The two had challenged Madrid's High Court of Justice's decision on Saturday evening, which had also endorsed the ban. However, the CC admits the appeals of the two unions and will issue a ruling on the merits of the issue later.

The CC intends to analyse in a judgment on the merits the questions of constitutionality raised, which are considered of special importance, "to clarify or modify its doctrine after the emergence of new social realities" and because "the matter transcends the specific case, because it raises a relevant legal issue and generates social repercussions. But, on the other hand, it has denied the precautionary measure of immediate suspension of the ban on marches because "the exceptional urgency is not appreciated" and, moreover, because it considers that "the matter presents specific substantive elements that call for a meditated and contradictory study of this request". As happens in this type of proceedings, the CC has ordered the formation of a separate piece and has given the Prosecutor's Office and the unions a period of three days to formulate the relevant allegations.

The decision of the CC has been adopted in an emergency plenary session that has been convened at 09.30 am to study these appeals after this Sunday Madrid's High Court issued five rulings on as many appeals filed by unions and feminist organisations against the ban agreed by the Delegation of the Spanish government in Madrid. In all of them, the Madrid justice ratifies the ban by appreciating "high risk" of contagion and prioritises the right "to health, physical integrity and life of people" to the right to gather freely, following the same criterion as in the other three appeals dismissed on Saturday night to hold events on Sunday. According to the appeals of the two unions, the sentence "does not analyse specifically" the call to which it alluded in the appeal but uses "generalisations" to dismiss it.

CCOO and UGT understand that they have to be studied "one by one and case by case separately", since the characteristics of the concentration they had planned, "with a limitation of attendees to 250 people" with crowd control made this act in "harmless" to public health, according to their criteria.