The Spanish Supreme Court on Tuesday suspended the right to vote for thousands of naturalized citizens, in a decision that has sparked controversy in the European country.
The victims are beneficiaries of the Democratic Memory Act, popularly known as the “neighbors’ law”, which was passed in October 2022.
This regulation allows to opt for nationality to those born outside of Spain who are descendants of exiles during the Civil War and the Franco dictatorship.
The regulation has already benefited thousands of citizens from different countries around the world, including several from Latin America.
In practice, the Supreme Court’s decision paralyses the immediate registration of these citizens in the electoral register and obliges them to prove that they are family members of Spanish exiles to exercise their right to vote.
This comes after the court partially accepted the precautionary measures requested in a appeal brought by the far-right Vox and Iustitia Europe parties, which seek to prevent this group of Spaniards from participating in the general elections of 2027.
They accuse the socialist government of Pedro Sánchez of trying to overturn the electoral standard for the benefit of his political sector, something that has been dismissed by the leader of La Moncloa.
In the ruling known on Thursday, the Supreme Court argues that the registration in the electoral census of the nationalized by the Law of Democratic Memory generates “a founded, real and serious danger of being able to seriously affect the objectivity and transparency of the electoral process.”
That, the bill says, would cause “an irreversible damage to the righteousness and correctness of that, since it directly impacts on an essential element for the rule of law, such as the expression of the popular will through the exercise of the right to vote.”
According to the Spanish newspaper El País, the measure left in the air the right to vote of hundreds of thousands of people beneficiaries of the “law of grandchildren”.
A total of 2.4 million people have applied for Spanish citizenship, according to the latest official data until 31 May.
Of that total, 333,696 people were already registered in the electoral register of foreigners and another 238,065 had obtained nationality and processed their entry to the register.
“The Popular Party and the far-right encircle the right to vote of thousands and thousands of Spanish citizens,” said President Sánchez.
He said he does not want “first and second citizens” but “all first citizens with the same rights”.
The action of Vox and Iustitia Europe was directed against a July agreement of the Central Electoral Board (JEC), which refused to pronounce on the electoral effects of the regulation.
In practice, the Supreme Court paralyses the immediate registration in the census that ruled until now and suspends the right to vote of those who already appear or are processing their registration in the Electoral Census of Absent Residents (CERA), the standard where the Spaniards who live abroad appear.
The body notes that only nationalized persons can maintain the right to vote who can accredit their condition of “son or grandson of children born outside Spain, father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, who originally had been Spanish, and who had suffered exile for political, ideological or belief reasons or sexual identity orientation, and who had lost or renounced the Spanish nationality.”
This legal criterion contradicts the implementation guidelines of the Law on Democratic Memory that had been dictated by the Ministry of Justice in 2022, where it is established that in order to accept the law, it was not necessary to prove to be the son or grandson of an exiled person.
“It will be presumed” that condition to “all Spaniards who left Spain between 18 July 1936 and 31 December 1955”, the body noted at that opportunity, specifying how the law should be applied and interpreted in the Civil Register.
In the ruling, the Supreme Court warns that that broad interpretation has provoked “the progressive increase of the CERA” and “does not appear to adjust, either, to the content of the legal norm itself that it interprets”.
The body admitted this precautionary measure while discussing the background of the controversy, so the decision should not be considered firm or definitive.
Sánchez has asked the court to resolve quickly to prevent the suspension from becoming a legal limbo for thousands of citizens.
Vox, for its part, celebrated it.
The spokeswoman for this political group in Congress, Pepa Millán, noted that the court “suspended the electoral effects of the so-called grandchildren’s law and the attempt to manipulate the election for the upcoming elections.”
“Some were limited to warning,” Millán said in reference to the fact that the People’s Party has also come out to dispute the political rewards of judicial determination. “And others have managed to stop Pedro Sánchez’s goal of perpetrating a coup in the upcoming general elections through the adulteration of the census,” said Vox spokeswoman.
“Today it is demonstrated that we must and can do everything in our hands to stop this government and return dignity to the Spaniards,” he said.
Those affected by this provisional measure have reacted with disappointment and concern.
Felipe Gómez, nationalized as Spanish through the first Law of Democratic Memory, is grandson of an exiled Republican who arrived in Mexico in 1939.
The professor told the Spanish newspaper El País that the right-wing offensive could be “a bad calculation...because it can lead us to several to ensure, to fight for our right to vote. And we would not vote for the right that is precisely who wants to stop it.”
“I would predict that before the elections this has been resolved in accordance with the law. No democratic state in the 21st century can make a distinction between types of countrymen, because it would be like distinguishing between citizens of one category and another,” he said.
Chilean Antonia Álvarez, who is processing her nationality in the European country, also showed criticism of the Spanish court’s decision.
“This, clearly, will affect many people who should have this right as citizens, those who obtained it and those who are in the process. This decision makes us feel despised because it’s a way of saying, ‘You don’t have this right because you weren’t born here’,” he said.
