The Supreme Court has refused to suspend the voting rights of the children of those naturalized by the law on grandchildren, so that they will be able to vote in the general elections on November 29. According to two resolutions, the Contentious-Administrative Chamber rejects the requests of Vox and Iustitia Europa, which had demanded to extend the suspension of the vote, while the State Attorney's Office, on behalf of the Government, was against it for "not being in accordance and in accordance with the law."
The key argument put forward by the High Court has to do with timing. The magistrates recall that the suspension of voting for those naturalized by the law on grandchildren was adopted on September 10, "long before the call for general elections" (October 5).
The TS reaffirmed this precautionary suspension on October 12, "in a time that is still workable, possible, prior to the start of the electoral period." However, the claims of Vox and Iustitia Europa, "could have been raised before," say the magistrates, "are raised after more than half of the electoral period [for 29-N], one week from the beginning of the electoral campaign and, in the case of the vote of voters registered in the Electoral Census of Absent Residents (CERA), two weeks from the beginning of the deposit of the vote in the ballot box at the consulates."
With 20 days to go until the elections, the TS doubts "the material possibility" that it could carry out the review and prioritizes "the principles of legal security and electoral stability." Thus, "the assessment of the different interests in conflict must opt for the denial of the precautionary claim, understanding that its granting could result in a serious disturbance of the general interests."
THE GOVERNMENT CELEBRATES THE DECISION OF THE TS
The high court disagrees with the State Attorney's allegation "about the absence of sufficient material impact, which is intended to be justified based on the percentage of participation in the last general elections of voters included in the CERA. Because it is not possible to know what participation there may be in the next electoral process" and, "above all, because it is a larger group than the one to which the Chamber has already granted the precautionary suspension."
Despite this discrepancy with the Legal Profession, the Government retains the endorsement of the participation of the grandchildren's children and celebrates the decision of the TS. Of course, Moncloa sources criticize that "this reasoning has not been applied to Spanish men and women who obtained nationality in application of the Democratic Memory Law."
And from the legal side, the Executive moves on to the political side and highlights that the resolution known this Monday, and reported by Europa Press, represents "a brake on the strategy of far-right organizations to suppress fundamental rights in a progressive and massive manner and cast doubt on the electoral result in case the right and far-right do not reach the majority they want." The Government does not limit this "strategy used by the extreme right all over the world" to Vox and Iustitia Europa only, but highlights that "the PP has also made it its own."
189,678 CHILDREN, MORE THAN 'GRANDKIDS'
The magistrates insist on defending their position on the law on grandchildren, because "there was a certain risk of alteration of the electoral roll through an exceptional increase in the number of new registered in the CERA, which affects its legal regularity and, therefore, the purity of the electoral process", so, they emphasize, "with all the more reason that this assessment is applicable to a larger number", which is what the children represent.
According to official data, the number of this group, 189,678 people, is higher than that of the recipients of the precautionary suspension already agreed upon, 162,454 people (163,355, discounting the 901 who provided consular certification of an exile for political reasons, then the suspension is not applicable to them)", they quantify. Therefore, there is no different legal reason to endorse the participation of the children of the grandchildren, but rather they are It is the times that prevent a suspension of these due to the greater damage that would be caused by the launched electoral period.
Judge Antonio Jesús Fonseca-Herrero has cast a dissenting vote against the resolution, indicating that "it is evident that the future ruling" that resolves the substance of the matter "will have to address that issue." "If in the first case the adoption of the precautionary measure was necessary to guarantee the future sentence, in the second it is equally necessary," he adds, adding that "it is unavoidable if an internally cohesive line of action is to be maintained."
"REASONS PERSIST" TO CONTINUE THE SUSPENSION
Several associations and individuals had also made allegations to the Supreme Court against the initial ruling on the grandchildren law. But the high court does reaffirm the suspension already in force, "with greater intensity." It refers to the fact that "after knowing the nominal list of the people who appear affected by the precautionary measures agreed in our previous orders, their considerable number and the alleged irregularities with which, apparently, they have been able to access the CERA, the reasons that led this Chamber to appreciate the existence of this last requirement persist."
As on previous occasions, Judge María Alicia Millán has formulated a dissenting vote against the decision to maintain the precautionary suspension for those naturalized by that provision of the Democratic Memory Law, which allows descendants of exiles to obtain Spanish nationality.
"I do not share the thesis that the sole invocation of the general interest consisting of preserving the purity or regularity of the electoral roll allows us to justify the precautionary suspension of the right to active suffrage of Spanish citizens incorporated into the census by virtue of fully effective acts," he argues.
In his opinion, "even in the hypothesis" that the 'grandchildren law' "had unduly expanded" its scope of action and that "people who should not have acquired nationality in that way appeared in the census, this situation could not be equated with that caused by fraudulent actions aimed at altering the composition of the electoral body," he argued in his dissenting opinion, collected by Europa Press.
