Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has vowed to use “whatever measures are needed” to end to a long-running judicial deadlock after conservative judges at the country’s constitutional court took the unprecedented step of suspending the passage of legislation that would overhaul the way appointments to their court are made.
Last week, Sánchez’s Socialist-led coalition government managed to get its changes to the penal code through congress, the lower house of Spain’s parliament.
Its key proposal was changing the way the judiciary’s governing body, the General Council of the Judiciary, works in order to break a long-running political standoff over new appointments to the constitutional court, where conservative judges currently hold a majority. The mandates of a third of the court’s judges – three conservatives and one progressive – have expired and political squabbling over their replacements has dragged on for the past four years.
Other measures in the draft legislation – which has been criticised by opposition parties as another sop to the moderate wing of the Catalan independence movement on which Sánchez depends for parliamentary support – include abolishing the offence of sedition and lowering the penalties for those who misuse public funds but do not do so for personal gain. Both offences were used to prosecute and jail nine of the Catalan independence leaders behind the failed 2017 push to secede from Spain.
The changes could mean lower penalties for those Catalan politicians who fled abroad after the unilateral independence referendum, and a sooner-than-anticipated return to frontline politics for those who were barred from holding office after being convicted.
The conservative People’s party (PP), which argues that the judicial changes are unconstitutional, filed a challenge at the constitutional court last week asking judges to freeze the passage of the legislation before it went before the senate this Thursday.
After a long meeting on Monday, the court accepted the PP’s challenge and ordered the suspension of the legislation. The move was approved after the court’s six conservative judges outvoted its five progressive ones.
Sánchez described the decision as “unprecedented” in the 44 years since Spain returned to democracy after the death of Gen Franco, and he said the PP wanted to “maintain the old makeup of the court, which is more favourable to its politics”.
The prime minister said the ruling would be abided by but promised a calm but firm response.
“Our democratic system has the mechanisms needed to overcome a situation like this,” he said in a televised address on Tuesday morning. “While we don’t approve of the decision, we will obey the resolution adopted yesterday by the current conservative majority of the constitutional court.
“But, in accordance with both the law and the constitution, the government will adopt whatever measures are needed to put an end to the unjustifiable blockage of the General Council of the Judiciary and the constitutional court so as to ensure that the constitution and the will of the people … are respected.”
Ione Belarra, the leader of Podemos, one of the junior coalition parties, said the Spanish right had crossed a line. “The political, media and judicial right is waging an unprecedented coup against democracy,” she said. “It’s now up to us to show that there are more of us democrats.”
Ander Gil, the senate’s Socialist speaker, confirmed that the upper house would respect the court’s decision, but said ways of “preserving parliamentary autonomy” would be examined once the scope of the ruling had been established.
The PP said it had merely been defending the constitutional order against the government’s hasty and cynical plan. The party’s leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, called on the coalition to abandon its “unprecedented verbal escalation” and to shelve what he said were its judicial efforts to placate the Catalan independence movement.
“[Sánchez] has said he’ll do everything possible to achieve the aim he can no longer conceal: doing whatever’s necessary to satisfy those who want [Catalan] independence and using the government to control the judiciary,” he said.
“But I say very clearly to all Spaniards that I’ll do everything possible to achieve the opposite: always defending the Spanish state, always defending Spanish democracy and guaranteeing the independence of the judiciary.”
If the government did not drop the changes, Feijóo added, a general election should be held to give Spaniards a say in the matter.
Spain is due to hold an election by the end of next year. Polls suggest that at present the PP would win the most seats but would have to rely on the support of the far-right Vox party to form a government.
Sánchez argues that the controversial measures on sedition and misuse of public funds are needed to help bring “coexistence” back to Catalonia after years of festering tensions, while Feijóo maintains that the proposals are intended solely to keep the Socialists in power.
