The Supreme Court (TS) has requested the Central Electoral Board (JEC) to send documentation regarding the known 'grandchildren's law', after the organization Iustitia Europa has asked for the precautionary suspension of the procedure for the preparation of the Electoral Census of Absent Residents (CERA), previously agreed upon by the electoral body, to be dismissed.
According to an order of arrangement accessed by Europa Press, the Supreme Court orders the JEC to "send the corresponding administrative file" within the "non-extendable period of twenty days", in the same resolution in which it admits the contentious-administrative appeal filed by Iustitia Europa.
The Central Electoral Board had already rejected the precautionary suspension of the CERA formation process, although it decided to request a specific instruction from the Electoral Census Office regarding the application of the 'grandchildren's law', a regulation that grants Spanish nationality to descendants of exiles.
The arbitral body warned that the establishment of the electoral municipality in which each beneficiary of the 'grandchildren's law' is registered — included in a provision of the Democratic Memory Law — must be "sufficiently justified if it does not correspond to their last residence in Spain."
In another order of arrangement, the high court agrees to open a separate piece of precautionary measures in order to analyze the request for suspension of the CERA registrations made in the appeal by Iustitia Europa.
Regarding this point, the JEC defended that the Constitution also guarantees the voting right of those living abroad and emphasized that the electoral administration "cannot replace the legislator's criterion", which established in a law "the conditions and the procedure" for the exercise of this right by emigrated individuals.
"It is not possible to access this type of requests. The electoral administration must apply all the procedures provided in the administration while they remain in force," concluded the JEC.
In a statement, Iustitia Europa maintains that "the exact number of new registrations in the CERA derived from the nationality acquisition files processed under the 'grandchildren's law' is not published."
According to the entity, there is also not "sufficient public information about its provincial distribution, the specific way of acquiring nationality, the consular office of origin, or the documentary traceability of each census incorporation."
From its perspective, the JEC "has recognized that the information sent by the Electoral Census Office was insufficient," but criticizes that the challenged agreement "does not immediately order all the inspection, review, audit, and control actions" demanded by Iustitia Europa.
"The electoral census cannot be a black box. Who votes, where they vote, and with what legal and documentary support cannot be left outside public and judicial control," emphasized the president of Iustitia Europa, Luis Pardo.