MADRID, Spain – The Constitutional Court rejected on Wednesday, by ten votes to two, admitting the Ombudsman’s appeal against the suspension of the voting rights of Spaniards naturalised under the so-called grandchildren’s law, a decision that maintains for now the precautionary measures agreed by the Supreme Court and leaves in the air the participation of 163,020 citizens residing abroad in the general election on 29 November.
Constitutional Court Refuses To Halt Voting Rights Suspension Under Grandchildren’s Law
Specifically, the plenary refused to admit the amparo appeal filed by Ombudsman Ángel Gabilondo, who sought to urgently lift the suspension of suffrage agreed by the Supreme Court, with the majority considering that the appeal was filed too early since the judicial procedure remains open at the Supreme Court and those affected still have the possibility of appearing and submitting arguments. The ruling comes amid growing political and judicial controversy, with the PP having threatened criminal action against Foreign Ministry officials if the Supreme Court order is not complied with, while the department headed by José Manuel Albares maintains that it is doing everything possible to review the files, in addition to a Madrid judge’s decision to admit a complaint for alleged malfeasance against the sister of minister Óscar Puente, Sofía Puente, as the person responsible for the instruction that developed the norm.
Moreover, just over a month before the elections, authorities still do not have all the information needed to identify those who must be excluded from the vote, with the proximity of electoral deadlines and the difficulties of reviewing thousands of files raising new questions about the overseas vote, from the possibility that some of those affected may vote to challenges to the results. The so-called grandchildren’s law is a provision of the Democratic Memory Law, approved in 2022, that allows certain descendants of Spaniards to acquire Spanish nationality, including the children and grandchildren of those who lost or renounced it as a consequence of exile during the Civil War and the Franco dictatorship.
The origin of the controversy lies in a later instruction from the Ministry of Justice that established a presumption of exile for Spaniards who left the country between 18 July 1936 and 31 December 1955, without the need to individually prove the reasons for their departure in all cases, with Vox and Iustitia Europa questioning this interpretation on the grounds that it broadened the conditions originally envisaged in the law. The Supreme Court agreed in September to provisionally suspend certain registrations in the Electoral Census of Absent Residents and, after the calling of early elections, confirmed on 12 October that the measure also affected the exercise of the vote of those already registered.
According to figures provided by the State Attorney’s Office, 163,020 Spanish citizens residing abroad are potentially affected by the suspension, though not all those who obtained nationality through the Democratic Memory Law have their voting rights suspended. The Supreme Court has established an exception for those who can prove through a consular certification that, as of 1 August 2026, they had obtained nationality as children or grandchildren of Spaniards exiled for political, ideological, belief or sexual orientation and identity reasons, without availing themselves of the presumption introduced by the Justice Ministry, while those who obtained nationality through that mechanism and cannot prove the required conditions will remain affected by the suspension as long as the precautionary measures remain in force. In any case, this decision does not entail the loss of Spanish nationality but affects exclusively the electoral effects of certain census registrations.
The main difficulty lies in identifying in time the people who must be excluded from the vote, with the Foreign Ministry maintaining that reviewing thousands of nationality files is a complex task, especially because much of the documentation predating the implementation of the digital Civil Registry must be examined manually. The ministry has mobilised staff to speed up the process, but Albares acknowledged on Monday that it will be very difficult to complete the checks before the elections, with the president of the Association of Spanish Diplomats, Alberto Virella, denouncing that some consulates are on the verge of exhaustion from the workload, with some working extraordinary hours to review the files.
The Electoral Census Office, dependent on the National Statistics Institute, therefore still does not have all the necessary information on the nationality files to apply the suspension, which could mean that some citizens affected by the precautionary measures remain registered in the census, receive electoral documentation and even cast their vote. Luis María Pardo, a lawyer and president of Iustitia Europa, one of the formations that promoted the judicial procedure, warned of this scenario, saying he has less and less confidence that these people will be removed from the electoral census and that in the end, somehow, they will end up voting, also denouncing on his social media that the Foreign Ministry had not yet provided the National Statistics Institute with all the information needed to identify the citizens whose suffrage is suspended.
The Central Electoral Board has agreed that the Electoral Census Office prepare the sending of documentation to the approximately 2.7 million Spaniards registered in the census of absent residents, including those whose electoral situation has not yet been clarified, with the dispatch scheduled between 24 and 30 October and required to include a warning about the possible suspension of the electoral rights of certain citizens. However, receiving the electoral documentation or even casting a vote does not guarantee that it will end up being counted, with the board’s decision having been forwarded to the Supreme Court, which has requested arguments from the parties before ruling on how the precautionary measures should be applied. If the information needed to identify those affected arrives after they have voted, the question of how to apply the suspension during the counting operations would remain.
The general count of the elections is scheduled between 4 and 7 December, when the provincial electoral boards will incorporate the votes from abroad into the tally. If votes from citizens subject to the suspension are ultimately counted, the parties that promoted the judicial procedure could question the validity of those electoral operations, while in the opposite direction, if votes from people who consider their right to suffrage violated are rejected, claims could also be filed, with the Organic Law on the General Electoral Regime providing mechanisms to challenge the proclamation of those elected, though the eventual annulment of a vote would depend on the irregularities proven, their relevance and the specific circumstances, and for now no judicial decision has ordered the suspension of the 29 November elections nor necessarily implies their repetition.
The PP has raised pressure on the Foreign Ministry by considering that it is not properly complying with the Supreme Court’s resolutions, with deputy secretary for sectoral coordination Alma Ezcurra announcing the sending of a burofax to the director-general of Spaniards Abroad and Consular Affairs, Carolina de Manueles Álvarez, to demand execution of the precautionary measures and giving a deadline of Thursday before the sending of electoral documentation begins. In that burofax, signed by PP secretary general Miguel Tellado, the conservatives accuse the Foreign Ministry of maintaining a passive and obstructionist conduct aimed at effective disobedience of judicial resolutions, warning of possible personal responsibilities for both the director-general and her hierarchical superiors, including minister Albares, if deliberate non-compliance is proven.
Albares has rejected the accusations and defended the work of foreign service officials, asking the PP on Wednesday in statements to TVE to stop harassing and intimidating consuls and accusing Alberto Núñez Feijóo of lying about compliance with judicial resolutions, assuring that the entire Spanish Foreign Service, the consuls, the consulates and the consular directorate-general are scrupulously complying with the Supreme Court order. The government, for its part, has expressed its respect for the Constitutional Court’s decision but recalled that the court has not entered into the merits of the matter and reiterated that it considers it improper to massively suspend the suffrage of Spanish citizens through precautionary measures.
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The controversy has also opened a new judicial front, with it becoming known on Wednesday that Judge Inmaculada Lova of Madrid’s Investigating Court number 35 has admitted a complaint filed by Hazte Oír against Sofía Puente, current secretary-general for Innovation and Quality of the Public Justice Service and sister of Transport Minister Óscar Puente. The judge is investigating an alleged crime of administrative malfeasance related to the instruction of 25 October 2022 that Sofía Puente signed when she was director-general of Legal Security and Public Faith, with Hazte Oír maintaining that this instruction improperly broadened the scope of the Democratic Memory Law by allowing nationality to be acquired without individually proving the status of exile in certain cases. The judge has decided to open the investigation despite the opposing view of the Prosecutor’s Office, which had requested its inadmission because a previous complaint on the same facts had already been archived, with the Ministry of Justice also defending Puente and denouncing a use of judicial institutions to persecute public officials. The admission of the complaint does not mean that the commission of any crime has been proven, and this criminal procedure is independent of the litigation before the Supreme Court over the electoral effects of the naturalisations.
