Supreme Court upholds the suspension of voting rights for those naturalised under the Grandchildren's Law.
Spain's Supreme Court on Monday, October 12th maintained its suspension of the voting rights of overseas voters who obtained Spanish nationality under a law for the descendants of exiles of the Franco dictatorship.
It means that thousands will be potentially excluded from voting in the November 29th elections, for which the electoral roll closes this Monday, according to legal sources.
"People who have obtained Spanish nationality of origin by exercising the Right of option provided for in the first paragraph of Law 20/2022, of October 19th, on Democratic Memory and who have not yet been registered in the Electoral Census due to the application of the suspension agreed in the aforementioned order, cannot register in the Electoral Census of Absent Residents Abroad (CERA)," the documents states.
Judges add that the suspension of those already registered will also be upheld.
The court said in a statement that its ruling would not apply to those who could prove they were children or grandchildren of Spaniards who "suffered exile for political or ideological reasons, or for reasons of belief or sexual orientation".
The government has expressed its regret over the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the suspension. "It seems the right to vote isn't so important to some," government sources stated in an conversation with journalists during the official reception for Spain's National Day.
The same sources indicated that the State Attorney's Office will now review whether the Supreme Court's precautionary suspension measures constitute a final ruling.
READ ALSO: Spain cuts voting rights of foreigners naturalised via Grandchildren's Law
The left-wing government passed a law in 2022 that granted nationality to the descendants of Spaniards who fled the country during the 1936-1939 civil war and part of General Franco's 1939-1975 dictatorship.
But the conservative and far-right opposition accused Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of exploiting the measure to add to the electoral register a mass of left-leaning voters from abroad, mainly from Latin America.
In September, before Sánchez called the election, the Supreme Court provisionally suspended the voting rights of some of the beneficiaries, requiring more evidence of their ties to victims of repression.
On Monday, it announced in a statement that it had rejected an appeal from the state legal service against the suspension, which is set to remain in force during the November 29th vote.
As of August 1st, the overseas voter register included more than 163,000 people who had acquired Spanish nationality through the 2022 law, according to the court's ruling.
Almost 97,000 further nationality applications had been approved but yet to be added to the register by the end of August, and more than 304,000 requests were still being studied, the ruling said.
It was unclear how many of these voters would be excluded from the election.
Sánchez, a global leftist hero for his clashes with US President Donald Trump and Israel, is battling unfavourable polls to try and extend his eight-year premiership.
He brought forward the vote, originally scheduled for 2027, after failing to pass urgent housing decrees that aimed to placate nationwide protests.
READ ALSO: Everything you need to know about Spain's Grandchildren Law citizenship scheme
With additional reporting from AFP