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Javier Arias Lomo
The early general election called by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez for 29 November has put Spain's so-called grandchildren's law at the centre of the pre-election campaign. The clash between the government and the opposition has intensified after the Supreme Court upheld an interim suspension of voting rights for 163,020 people who acquired Spanish nationality through this route.
The decision has opened a complex legal dispute over the overseas electoral register, which has historically changed the allocation of only a handful of seats in democratic elections.
Here are the key points to understanding the grandchildren's law and the implications of the Supreme Court's rulings.
What is the law?
The grandchildren's law is not a standalone piece of legislation. It refers to the law on democratic memory, which establishes a specific route to acquiring Spanish nationality by option. Its aim is to address the consequences of exile during the Civil War and repression under Franco, which prevented descendants of Spaniards from obtaining citizenship.
The law covers, among other cases, the children and grandchildren of Spaniards who were forced to leave the country for political or ideological reasons, because of their beliefs, or because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. It also extends eligibility to adult children of people who recovered or acquired Spanish nationality under earlier legislation.
When was it passed and when did applications close?
The democratic memory law was passed in 2022 and came into force on 21 October that year. It initially gave applicants two years to apply for nationality, with the possibility of a one-year extension. The government activated that extension, setting the final deadline for October 2025.
No new applications under the ordinary procedure have been accepted since then, although consulates and civil registries continue to process applications submitted within the legal deadline.
How did people acquire Spanish nationality through this route?
Applicants had to submit applications to civil registries or Spanish consulates, providing documents establishing their identity, family links and ancestors' Spanish nationality. The required evidence depended on the specific legal provision under which they applied.
The procedure was not the same for everyone, as the requirements varied according to the route used. This distinction lies at the heart of the current dispute: the issue is not simply whether applicants can prove they had a Spanish ancestor, but whether they meet the specific conditions concerning descendants of exiles.
Where does the legal controversy lie?
The controversy does not stem directly from the wording of the law, but from an instruction issued by the Ministry of Justice on 25 October 2022 to guide its implementation.
That instruction established a presumption that Spaniards who left the country between 18 July 1936, the date of the Francoist uprising, and 31 December 1955 had been exiled. For those who left between 1956 and 1978, it required other forms of evidence.
The legal dispute centres on whether the authorities can automatically presume that everyone who left Spain during the specified period was a victim of repression and grant nationality on that basis. The Supreme Court now considers that the authorities cannot simply assume that applicants were exiles in the way the instruction allowed.
The court questions whether this administrative criterion complies with the requirements of the law.
What has the Supreme Court decided?
In September, the Supreme Court granted interim measures sought by Vox and Iustitia Europa in their legal challenges to the electoral effects of the measure. It ordered the authorities to distinguish between people who acquired nationality directly under the democratic memory law and those who did so under the now-contested administrative instruction issued by the Justice Ministry.
Following Sánchez's decision to bring the election forward, announced nine days ago, the state legal service and the public prosecutor asked the judges to lift the suspension. They said that there was not enough time to review the electoral register and warned that the measure risked depriving already naturalised citizens of a fundamental right guaranteed by the Spanish Constitution.
On Monday, 12 October, with the deadline approaching, the Supreme Court issued two orders addressing the arguments. It upheld the interim suspension of voting rights for the 163,020 people concerned (those listed on the overseas electoral register as of 1 August, the cutoff date for voting in the 29 November election).
With five of the six judges on the panel supporting the decision, the court ruled that maintaining the "integrity" of the electoral register as a collective asset of "general interest" took precedence over the individual right to vote.
The ruling does, however, allow for exceptions. People who can provide documentary evidence that they are descendants of exiles can recover their voting rights by obtaining a certificate from a Spanish consulate. The court has also given those affected five days to join the proceedings, represented by a lawyer and a court representative.
Why is it so difficult to distinguish between the two groups?
The main obstacles are administrative and technological. The authorities say their databases cannot automatically identify which citizens acquired Spanish nationality directly under the democratic memory law and which did so under the subsequent ministerial instruction now under challenge.
According to the state legal service, the only way to distinguish between the groups would be to examine every individual case file and the relevant consular registry entries. Completing that manual audit before 29 November would be practically impossible.
The only viable alternative (requiring each person concerned to visit their consulate in person and request an individual certificate) could overwhelm consular offices in the short time remaining before the election.
Where do the figures come from?
The differing figures reflect four distinct statistical groups examined by the courts.
The Supreme Court began with an overall increase of 408,262 people on the electoral register of Spaniards resident abroad (Cera). Not all of these registrations resulted from the route established by the democratic memory law.
Within that total, the state legal service identified 369,017 registrations directly linked to the law. It then isolated a subgroup of 168,896 people who acquired nationality under the 2022 ministerial instruction, which presumed that those who left Spain between 1936 and 1955 had been exiled.
The final figure is 163,020 people, based on the electoral register as of 1 August. Both the authorities and the judges have accepted this figure.
Can we establish how many of these new Spanish citizens are descendants of exiles?
Not from the publicly available data.
An increase in the electoral register does not, in itself, prove that any irregularity has occurred. Establishing the position accurately would require the authorities to cross-check individual civil registry files, consular records and entries on the overseas electoral register.
Since the authorities cannot automate this process, it would be misleading to attribute the entire increase in registrations to nationality grants made improperly. Nor can anyone reliably estimate what proportion of those affected would meet the requirements if asked to provide additional documentation.
How many votes are at stake on 29 November?
The 163,020 people whose voting rights have been suspended do not equate directly to the number of votes that would actually be cast. Turnout among overseas voters is generally much lower than among voters living in Spain.
The state legal service estimated that, applying the overseas register's turnout rate at the 2023 general election (8.36 per cent) the group initially affected could account for around 14,120 actual votes.
What rights do the affected citizens retain?
Their Spanish nationality remains intact. The Supreme Court's ruling provisionally restricts their right to vote in the forthcoming general election, but it does not revoke their citizenship or imply that they have committed any offence or failed to fulfil any obligation.
The court's orders also provide a way to restore voting rights. Any affected citizen who obtains a consular certificate proving that they are descended from exiles can immediately recover their right to vote on 29 November. However, the tight deadline raises serious doubts about how effectively this safeguard can work in practice.
How much could the dispute affect the election?
Overseas votes can determine parliamentary seats in provinces where parties are separated by narrow margins. This happened in Madrid after the July 2023 general election, when the overseas vote count transferred the final seat from the PSOE to the PP parties.
Beyond the political battle between the government and opposition over the overseas electoral register, the controversy highlights the challenge facing the courts: ensuring the greatest possible transparency and accuracy in the electoral roll while the authorities struggle to implement the rules technically, just weeks before an election, without restricting the rights of citizens whose nationality has already been recognised.