The parliamentary spokesperson for IU in Congress, Enrique Santiago, maintains that "the most concerning" aspect of the Supreme Court's (TS) decision is that "it adds to a clearly political campaign, a campaign of delegitimization of democracy" with the ruling that provisionally suspends the vote of people already registered in the Electoral Census of Absentee Residents (CERA) who obtained nationality through the so-called 'grandchildren's law', as well as new registrations.
In statements to the media in Córdoba, Santiago emphasized that it is "a clear example of the intervention in politics by some judicial sectors, reduced, because obviously it is not the vast majority of the Judiciary, far from it, but these are sectors located in positions where they can do a lot of damage," and linked this situation to "the PP's eagerness to control 100% of the positions on the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) to ensure that appointments in the high courts are under their control."
According to what he has stated, "this situation arises because the PP establishes a tight control, politicizes justice and when it does not yield results, it is already known, for eleven years of our democracy, the PP has blocked the renewal of the positions on the General Council of the Judiciary, which are the ones that make those appointments of judges in the high courts, every time it understood that it did not have a composition in the CGPJ that favored it 100%."
In his analysis, he denounces that "it is an absolute manipulation of justice, it is creating great damage to the image of justice and in the latest surveys from July, more than 65% of Spaniards clearly believe that justice is politicized, that there is a legal war," something he qualifies as "sad, because of the 5,500 judges in Spain, the vast majority do an admirable public service job, with not all the means they should have, and that due to a minority that clearly works for the PP, there is this discredit among Spanish society, it is very sad."
Therefore, he has demanded that PP and Vox "stop putting their hands in justice, stop muddying judicial independence and stop using justice as just another political party," emphasizing that after this resolution "there is absolute astonishment in the legal world."
In this regard, he pointed out that "it clearly seems that the Supreme Court has arrogated powers that it does not have, which belong to the Constitutional Court (TC), such as suspending the effect of a law." In his view, "if the Supreme Court does not find the application of a law to the Constitution correct, what it has to do is raise a question of unconstitutionality, which is clearly stated in the law, and not suspend the application of a law."
Competences of the TC and the right to vote
In this context, the leader of IU emphasized that "the application of a law in our democracy can only be suspended by the Constitutional Court or the Congress of Deputies, not the Supreme Court," which is why he rejects the ruling, understanding that "it makes a clear discrimination of rights, by nullifying a fundamental right, the right to vote of Article 23 of the Constitution, without questioning the right to nationality." "That cannot be," he stressed.
Along these lines, he reasoned that "it should have questioned the right to nationality, because the right to vote is inseparable from the right to nationality, which is why it also does not have much legal foundation." He also recalled that "this is a question of legal validity or not, because it seems that the Supreme Court bases everything on an instruction that justice resolved back in 2008 and found no problems of any kind."
Meanwhile, Santiago has accused PP and Vox of "not recognizing electoral results, except when they win." "That is the absolute reality," he stated, emphasizing that "in all the autonomous processes where there has been a PP majority that, by adopting the ultra programs of Vox, has allowed them to govern, they have not questioned the electoral system."
In this sense, he explained that "in this case, the autonomous electoral system is managed by the same companies and institutions that carry out the general election system, and that system is indeed questioned, as in the previous general elections, questioning mail-in voting and companies like Indra."
He also pointed out that "the same magistrate who was the rapporteur in this resolution already thought of questioning Indra in a meeting with Aznar," but "when the result corresponds to autonomous elections, it seems that no one questions it if the PP wins," Santiago reiterated.