Admission of pirate amendment in educational reform opens debate on nationality of descendants of exiles

The admission for processing by the Board of the Education Commission, dominated by PSOE and Sumar, of the pirate amendment, introduced in the draft reform of the Education Law, to open nationality and the right to vote to all descendants of Spaniards who left the country between 1936 and 1955 for any reason and not only for reasons of political persecution, represents a challenge to the legality reiterated by the Constitutional Court for 15 years in multiple pronouncements and has as its objective Lastly, in the opinion of the opposition, sponsor massive nationalization and fatten the electoral roll with virtual voters.

The acceptance of the amendment contradicts the legal report of the Chamber according to which the amendment, signed by Sumar, was not only presented "without any justification" but, from its "simple reading", it can be stated that "there is not the minimum point of material connection that allows raising any doubt about the lack of homogeneity between the object of the bill and the literality and purpose of the amendment."

The text of the amendment includes the substance of the ministerial order issued by the former director of Legal Security Sofía Puente, expanding the scope of what is established in the Democratic Memory Law to, in fact, open a new case, that is, the possibility of requesting nationalization for descendants of Spaniards who left the country for any reason. It is precisely this circumstance - the attempt to modify the content of a law via ministerial order - that has caused the Supreme Court to stop the inclusion of the newly naturalized citizens in the census. Now, after the amendment is accepted for processing by the Board of the Education Commission, the PP will exhaust all possible parliamentary resources, for protection and reconsideration, before the Congress Board to finally be able to go to the Constitutional Court.

The popular ones assume that the Congress Board, also dominated by PSOE and Sumar, will try to clear the ball by referring to the "autonomy" of the commission Board, which will imply allowing the amendment to continue its processing and this despite the fact that the Constitutional doctrine has been clear for 15 years. The court considers that the intrusive amendments are not admissible because they violate the right of political participation of the deputies included in article 23 of the Magna Carta.

The doctrine was established in a 2011 ruling - considered historic because it reviewed the flexibility that the court had had until then with this type of amendments -, which responded to an appeal presented by socialist senators after the Popular Party's attempt to introduce an intrusive amendment in the Arbitration Law project to classify the illegal calling of a referendum as a crime. Since then, there have been numerous pronouncements on the matter nullifying Trojan amendments.