The Congress has given this Thursday the green light to a bill that will allow granting Spanish nationality to certain Sahrawis born when Western Sahara was under Spanish administration and, subsequently, to their descendants. The vote coincides with a judicial decision that raises an inevitable question: could the Supreme Court also end up intervening regarding the electoral effects of these new nationalizations?
The precedent has just occurred with the so-called "grandchildren's law". The Supreme Court has provisionally suspended the voting rights of certain naturalized individuals incorporated into the Electoral Census of Absent Residents (CERA), as well as the new registrations affected, while it resolves the appeals from Vox and Iustitia Europa.
The Chamber considers that the growth of the census generates "a founded, real, and serious danger" of potentially severely affecting the "objectivity and transparency of the electoral process". As of July 1, 2026, the CERA had 408,262 more voters than that used in the general elections of 2023, increasing from 2,328,260 to 2,736,522.
The parallelism with the new proposal regarding Sahrawis is evident since between 70,000 and 110,000 people will benefit from this initiative, although it is advisable to scrutinize its details to determine whether Justice will indeed act in the same direction.
Up to 110,000 potential beneficiaries, but not 110,000 new Spaniards
The first difference lies in the figures. During the parliamentary processing, the potential number of beneficiaries has been placed at up to 110,000 people. This range, however, does not equate to the number of people who will acquire Spanish nationality nor, much less, to the number of new voters who will be incorporated into the CERA.
The proposal considers that "exceptional circumstances" exist to grant nationality by letter of nature to Sahrawis born in Western Sahara before September 29, 1977, even if they do not have legal residence in Spain.
This is not an automatic naturalization. Each interested party must apply for it and prove that they meet the established conditions through one of the documents accepted by the future law.
Among them are a Spanish DNI even if it is expired, documentation related to the census for the Western Sahara referendum authenticated by the United Nations, birth certificates, or documents issued by the Spanish Administration.
The norm also contemplates that first-degree descendants can subsequently opt for nationality and modifies the Civil Code to allow Sahrawis to apply for it after two years of legal residence in Spain.
Therefore, the final figure will depend on how many people are actually included in the assumptions of the law, how many submit the application, and how many end up obtaining nationality.
Nationality and voting rights: two different issues
Here lies the main difference with the controversy of the "grandchildren's law".
The Supreme Court has not annulled the nationalities granted under the Democratic Memory Law. The precautionary measure affects their electoral effects and their presence in the CERA while the court resolves the substance of the appeals.
The judges justify their intervention due to the risk that elections could be held with a census that could later be declared irregular in part. If those people voted and then the court concluded that certain incorporations to the CERA were not correct, the Chamber understands, an electoral effect could have occurred that would be impossible to reverse.
The Supreme Court therefore argues that the recorded growth generates a "founded, real, and serious danger" and can cause "irreversible damage" to electoral objectivity and transparency.
The issue with the Sahrawis would be different. Obtaining Spanish nationality does not mean automatically joining the CERA. This census groups Spaniards residing abroad, so the eventual electoral impact of the new law will depend, among other factors, on where those who ultimately acquire nationality reside and how many end up joining the census.
There is no official estimate of how many potential beneficiaries of the Sahrawi law would end up registered in the CERA, given the available information.
Could the Supreme Court also intervene?
Yes, it could do so if there were an appeal against an action susceptible to judicial review and precautionary measures were requested, but there is no automaticity derived from the decision made regarding the "grandchildren's law".
For a comparable scenario to arise, there would have to be a controversy regarding the legality of the application of the new norm or its electoral consequences. And the court would then have to determine that there are sufficient reasons to intervene before issuing a final ruling.
There is also a relevant difference in the origin of the current litigation. In the proceedings regarding the "grandchildren's law," the Supreme Court also focuses on the interpretation made by the Ministry of Justice after the approval of the Democratic Memory Law.
The Chamber warns that the progressive increase of the CERA resulting from that interpretation "does not seem to fit, either, with the content of the legal norm it interprets". That is to say, one of the issues it must resolve is whether the administrative application expanded the scope established by the legislator.
In the Sahrawi case, it is the proposition of law itself that expressly defines who can apply for the letter of nature, what documentation can be used to prove it, and what possibilities their descendants will have.
Two extraordinary paths to nationality in opposite directions
The temporal coincidence leaves, despite the legal differences, a singular political picture.
While the Supreme Court has just provisionally frozen the electoral effects of certain nationalizations derived from the Democratic Memory Law, Congress is processing another exceptional path to nationality that could potentially reach tens of thousands of people.
The Sahrawi proposition has left Congress with the support of the government parties and their usual partners, the abstention of PP and UPN, and the rejection of Vox. It will now have to continue its processing in the Senate.
Precisely Vox is present in both debates. It has appealed alongside Iustitia Europa the situation of those nationalized through the "grandchildren's law" and has voted against the Sahrawi proposition, questioning the guarantees of the procedure and denouncing that it means "giving away" Spanish nationality.
But the precedent of the Supreme Court does not allow us to anticipate that future Sahrawi nationals will encounter the same suspension of the right to vote. To even know the potential dimension of that scenario, a fundamental piece of information is missing: how many people will end up obtaining nationality through the new law and, among them, how many would join the CERA.
Until those figures exist and, above all, a possible judicial controversy regarding its application, the parallelism between both laws is politically striking, but legally still limited.