Spain's Supreme Court protects the ballot box (ABC editorial)

Spain's Supreme Court has decided to uphold precautionary measures suspending the electoral effects of the electoral roll registration of some 163,000 people granted citizenship under the so-called grandchildren law, after finding a well-founded risk that their naturalisation does not meet the legal requirements. The decision, adopted by five votes to one, does not annul those citizenships nor resolve the merits of the case.

The ball has been in the Administration's court for months, and so far the court has heard nothing back. Spain's Supreme Court has decided to uphold precautionary measures suspending the electoral effects of the registration of some **163,000** people granted citizenship under the so-called grandchildren law on the Electoral Census of Absent Residents. The ruling, adopted by **five votes to one**, came after the State Attorney General's Office asked for the suspension to be lifted and after **Pedro Sánchez** publicly pressed the judges, one day earlier, to rule in favour of those voters.

## What the Supreme Court has decided, and what it has not

It is worth separating two things that the noise conflates. The Supreme Court has not annulled any citizenship. Nor has it definitively declared the instruction that sparked the whole conflict illegal. What it has done is keep the electoral effects of certain registrations provisionally suspended, considering them under well-founded suspicion. It is a legal distinction that the Government, according to the **ABC** editorial that broke the story, seeks to blur by presenting the ruling as a blanket deprivation of rights.

The court finds a well-founded risk that the application of that instruction allowed people whose naturalisation does not meet the legal requirements to be added to the electoral roll. Nothing more, and nothing less. What is at stake is the integrity of the electoral process, not anyone's desire to vote.

## The 2022 instruction that started it all

The origin of the conflict lies in the instruction issued in **2022** by **Sofía Puente**, then Director General of Legal Security and Public Faith. The Democratic Memory Law recognised the right to apply for Spanish citizenship to the descendants of Spaniards exiled for reasons expressly provided for in the law. The instruction, however, established a general presumption of exile for those who left Spain between **1936 and 1955**: it was enough to prove departure from the country.

In other words, an administrative provision in practice widened the scope of a law passed by the legislature, without requiring individual proof of the circumstances envisaged. ABC denounced that overreach and its possible consequences from the start. The Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the legality of that instruction, but it has made clear that the general interest in preserving the integrity of the electoral roll outweighs the particular interests of those standing in the elections.

## A month without data on the review of files

Here lies the court's harshest criticism, and it is not aimed at the voters. A month after the Supreme Court demanded that the files be reviewed and separated, the Administration has not reported how many it has examined, how many it has classified or what results it has obtained. The judges do not even know whether the task has begun.

It is not just that the Government has cited material difficulties in implementing the measures before **29 November**. It is that it has not even shown what it has done to comply with them. That lack of information prevents the court from verifying the degree of implementation of its own rulings. Added to this is the attempt by **PSOE** and **Sumar** to give the instruction legal cover through an amendment tacked onto an education bill that fell with the dissolution of the Cortes (Spain's parliament).

## The Government's reaction and the right to vote

The response of **Fernando Grande-Marlaska**, insinuating that the Supreme Court does not care about the right to vote, is unbecoming of a minister and a judge on leave of absence. The court's decision may harm citizens who acted in good faith, but its protective value lies precisely in safeguarding the electoral process, not the wishes of political actors.

The right to vote is fundamental. So too is the guarantee that no one exercises it without meeting the legal requirements. Responsibility for reaching this point lies with whoever failed to clarify the irregularities in time, not with the judges who point them out. Spain needs to go to the polls with a legal, verifiable and suspicion-free electoral roll. Without that guarantee, the legitimacy of the elections is unnecessarily compromised. And in electoral matters, as in any judicial proceeding, it is worth remembering that precautionary rulings are not final judgments: the merits of the case remain pending.