The Supreme Court may open this Monday a new judicial front related to the electoral consequences of the so-called Grandchildren's Law. The Administrative Litigation Chamber will hold a hearing starting at 10:00 a.m. to decide on the precautionary measures requested by Iustitia Europa against the census effects of the nationalizations processed under the eighth additional provision of Law 20/2022.
Sources from DEMÓCRATA indicate that the procedure has acquired a new dimension following the formal entry of the Ministry of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes and the National Institute of Statistics (INE) as co-defendants.
The question on the Supreme Court's table is how the new Spaniards residing abroad are incorporated into the electoral roll, what controls exist over these registrations, and how the constituency in which their votes can have electoral effects is determined.
The Supreme Court itself agreed to hold an oral and public hearing after admitting the appeal from Iustitia Europa and opening a separate piece to study the precautionary measures. Europa Press reported in July that the Chamber had also requested from the Central Electoral Board the administrative file related to the application of the regulation.
Presidency and the INE enter the case
The new development that sources familiar with the procedure are revealing to DEMÓCRATA is the involvement as co-defendants of the Ministry of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes and the INE, both represented by the State Attorney's Office.
The procedure thus ceases to have as its main opposing parties only Iustitia Europa and the Central Electoral Board. The Government and the agency responsible for official statistics will now defend their respective positions before the Supreme Court in a controversy that directly affects the formation of the electoral roll.
The presence of the INE is particularly relevant due to its relationship with the Electoral Census Office, responsible for the formation and updating of the census. The Central Electoral Board itself requested in July a complete report on the application of the Grandchildren's Law and on the voting of absent resident Spaniards, after considering the information received from the Census Office to be insufficient.
The JEC also requested precise criteria to determine the municipality of electoral registration of the new citizens.
The legal problem posed by Iustitia Europa does not consist, therefore, in questioning that the legislation recognizes certain assumptions for acquiring Spanish nationality by descent. The eighth additional provision of the Law of Democratic Memory allows certain individuals born outside of Spain who are descendants of Spaniards to opt for nationality, among other assumptions, and the development instruction establishes the documentation and procedure that interested parties must follow.
The controversy begins afterward: once nationality is recognized, how is that new citizen incorporated into the Electoral Census of Absentee Residents (CERA), what electoral municipality is assigned to them, and, by extension, in which provincial constituency does their vote ultimately take effect.
Iustitia Europa brought the matter to the Supreme Court
Iustitia Europa initiated its judicial offensive on June 29, when it filed a complaint with the Central Electoral Board and requested urgent action regarding the new incorporations to the CERA related to the nationality files of the Grandchildren Law.
According to the documentation disseminated by the organization itself, its objective was to know the complete chain that leads from the granting of nationality to the incorporation of the citizen into the external census.
The party led by Luis María Pardo argues that it should be possible to determine with verifiable documentation when each registration occurs, at which consulate it is processed, how the identity of the citizen is accredited, and, above all, what criteria are used to assign them a municipality and an electoral constituency.
The issue is relevant because in the Spanish general elections, the seats in Congress are distributed by provincial constituencies. Therefore, the territorial assignment of voters residing abroad can have consequences on where their votes are counted and, in certain electoral scenarios, on the final distribution of representation.
Iustitia Europa was also the first party to challenge before the Supreme Court Agreement 204/2026 of the Central Electoral Board, approved on July 16. The agreement of the JEC responded to the writings submitted by various parties and entities regarding the application of the eighth additional provision of Law 20/2022 and its impact on the preparation of the CERA.
The JEC itself had already requested more information
The existence of the controversy does not solely stem from the complaint of Iustitia Europa. In its Agreement 204/2026, the Central Electoral Board expressly addressed the preparation of the CERA as a consequence of the application of the Grandchildren's Law and requested additional information from the Electoral Census Office about the procedure.
The JEC requested a complete report on the application of the regulations and an instruction that established precise criteria to determine the municipality of electoral registration. EFE then explained that the electoral body considered it necessary to examine the legal correctness of the procedure for updating the CERA and determining the electoral municipality.
The JEC itself also pointed out that the determination of the electoral municipality of the beneficiaries of the Grandchildren's Law must be sufficiently justified when it does not coincide with the last address they had in Spain, as reported by Europa Press when informing about the resolution.
The electoral body also maintained that it could not replace the legislator and that it must apply the current procedures.
It is precisely at this point where the appeal acquires constitutional and electoral dimensions: it is not only discussed who has the right to be Spanish, but how it is guaranteed that the subsequent exercise of the right to vote is incorporated into the census with objective, verifiable, and territorially justified criteria.
A precautionary decision that can alter the scenario
The decision that the Supreme Court adopts this Monday will be precautionary and will not yet resolve the definitive substance of the appeal. But it can have immediate consequences if the Chamber considers that there are sufficient reasons to suspend certain registrations or establish controls over their incorporation into the CERA while the procedure continues.
The Supreme Court itself justified the holding of the oral hearing due to the relevance of the issues raised and summoned the parties to publicly discuss the requested measures. Europa Press confirmed that the hearing will begin at 10:00 hours and that the court will specifically study the request for suspension of the registrations linked to the Grandchildren's Law.
This turns the judicial citation of this Monday into a matter of special electoral interest. An eventual precautionary suspension would not imply the annulment of the Grandchildren's Law nor deprive those who have met the legal requirements of nationality, but it could affect the way new registrations are incorporated into the census and, therefore, the possibility that its electoral effects occur while the substance of the litigation is resolved.
Iustitia Europa precisely intends for the court to examine that chain before its effects may become difficult to reverse. The organization argues that the census must be identifiable and auditable from the documentation that originates the registration to the electoral constituency to which the citizen is linked.
The substance of the battle: how the census is controlled
The action of Iustitia Europa thus acquires a dimension that transcends the discussion about a specific norm. The appeal raises before the Supreme Court an essential question for any electoral process: what controls exist over the incorporation of new voters and who must guarantee that this incorporation can be reconstructed and verified.
The formation considers it insufficient that there is a legal recognition of nationality if afterwards it cannot be precisely known how the administrative leap from the Civil Registry and the consular registries to the PERE and the CERA occurs, nor with what criteria a citizen is attributed an electoral municipality.
That is why the presence of the INE is particularly relevant in the hearing. The organization does not only intend to know the number of nationalizations produced under the Democratic Memory Law, but how many of those people have ended up incorporated into the census of absent residents, where they have been registered and by what criteria their electoral affiliation has been determined.
The question that will reach the Supreme Court this Monday, therefore, is more concrete than the political debate that has surrounded the so-called Grandchildren's Law: whether the system used to convert those new nationalizations into census registrations offers sufficient guarantees to preserve the transparency, traceability, and equality of the electoral process.
And at that point, the Government will no longer be on the sidelines of the procedure. According to sources from DEMÓCRATA, the Presidency and the INE will have to defend before the Chamber, along with the Central Electoral Board, the administrative action that Iustitia Europa intends to submit to judicial control.
The hearing this Monday may be, therefore, the first moment in which the Supreme Court determines whether those electoral effects should continue to occur without specific precautionary oversight or whether, on the contrary, it is appropriate to introduce a brake while the substance of the controversy is examined.
The decision will not resolve who can be Spanish. It may decide, instead, under what controls one can enter the electoral roll and produce effects from their incorporation into the external vote.