Spanish Government to take Catalan Declaration of Sovereignty to Constitutional Court

The Vice President of the Spanish government, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, announced last Friday that the Spanish government Attorney General's office has already completed its report on the Declaration of Sovereignty approved in Parliament on January 23rd and that she "sees favourable arguments” for filing an appeal of unconstitutionality.

In the press conference held after the Cabinet meeting of Spanish Ministers, the Spanish Vice President explained that the Executive will now request a report from the Council of State before deciding whether it lodges an appeal at the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC). She said that the Attorney General's report is a "very decisive element” to set the "position" of Mariano Rajoy‘s government, but it is not binding and the final decision will be taken when they have another report of the Council of State.

Sáenz de Santamaría has insisted that the Spanish Executive "complies with and will ensure that the Constitution and the laws are enforced” and that they will take the assessments and the arguments of the Council of State “very much into account”. She has said that from the first moment the Government has had no doubt about the "unconstitutional content" of the resolution, but she wanted to clarify whether it has "legal effects" to be able to challenge it.

The Vice President has explained that in order to legally challenge the Declaration of Sovereignty, the Council of State must determine that the text has to "have unconstitutional content" and be "challengeable", and she has insinuated that it will be. In this sense, she has assured that the Attorney General has considered that recognizing the Catalan people as a sovereign subject violates four articles of the Constitution such as the 1st, which establishes that sovereignty lies with all the Spanish people; the 2nd, which binds the "indissoluble unity of Spain", or the 9th, which marks "all the public powers as subjects".

In addition, the number two of the Executive has explained that the declaration is “open to appeal as it produces legal effects 'ad extra' and has a clearly unconstitutional purpose”. In this sense, she has said that unlike the “Ibarretxe plan” (the autonomous process initiated by the Basques), which was initially determined as not violating the law, the resolution of the Parliament "depletes the decision-making process and implies the opening of a broader process."

But it should be remembered that the Declaration of Sovereignty and the right to decide was approved by the Catalan Parliament, legitimately and democratically elected at the polls by the citizens of Catalonia, and was explicit in the electoral programme of all political parties that stood in the elections, for either a yes or a no vote. Needless to say, therefore, it has total democratic value and legitimacy.