The Constitutional Court has decided to press the accelerator to dictate before the summer the most important sentences that had been pending for years.

The one related to the abortion law will be known on May 9, and with this the court will close a first cycle of resolutions that have led to the endorsement in a quarter —between January and April of this year— of some of the main abortion laws. the legislature.

Among them, the educational reform of the

and the Euthanasia law.

The one related to the voluntary interruption of pregnancy, in turn, has been redrafted during the last two months, ensuring its consistency with the new legislation in force on this matter.

The court has also supported important social measures appealed by the PP and/or Vox, depending on the case.

Among them, the decree-law that equated paternity leave to maternity leave, or the one that prohibited evictions during the state of alarm decreed against the pandemic, in 2020 and 2021.

The new progressive majority of the guarantee body has acted cohesively in all these matters, with some discrepancy in specific cases.

But in general, they have done so in terms that show both the reasons that the PP had for its fierce opposition to the renewal of the Constitutional Code and the reasons that the PSOE had for insisting on the constitutionally foreseen change of four magistrates, who should have ceased in June 2022 but whose mandate was extended until last January.

With the relays, the court has come to have seven magistrates from the progressive sector, by four from the conservative block.

In some subjects a certain approximation has been feasible,

This has been reflected in the first trial and error between both sectors, in the initial months of the new stage of the renewed court.

The progressive majority has closed ranks in the face of the first offensive of challenges presented, whose main objective has been to make it difficult, if not prevent, for the Constitutional Court to issue a ruling on the abortion law.

The court, however, rejected all of them, and even prevented Judge Concepción Espejel from refraining from participating in the deliberation of the appeal against the law of voluntary interruption of pregnancy, presented by the PP in 2010.

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Espejel's reason for abstaining was his possible lack of appearance of impartiality, since he had criticized this project as a member of the Judiciary.

The conservative magistrates advocated admitting that abstention, but the progressive majority opposed it, considering that Espejel's opinions, exposed 12 years ago in non-binding reports and which were never formalized, were not sufficient reason to remove her from the deliberation.

Judges Juan Carlos Campo and Laura Díez, on the other hand, have abstained without opposition from the court in cases relating to laws or decree-laws in the preparation of which they had a direct participation.

Campo did it in the sentence of the

, and Díez in relation to the Catalan linguistic regulations, which he endorsed in official reports and which has been questioned before the Constitutional Court, for not abiding by the rulings that imposed 25% Spanish in the educational system in Catalonia.

Faced with the sentences related to the

or the Euthanasia law, there have also been dissenting votes, but they have not always been presented by the conservative magistrates en bloc.

Thus, in the first case the four members of this group voted against, while in the second only two did, Enrique Arnaldo and Concepción Espejel.

In the ruling on the

On the other hand, the court reiterated that the Constitution does not impose percentages for the use of languages ​​in the educational system.

On this matter, the court also rejected the amparo requested by a company that demanded the translation into Spanish of a sentence drawn up in Catalan by the High Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands, given that this party only questioned an order of execution of the sentence handed down, without having previously objected to the use of said language during the process.

Second stage

The guarantee body is already preparing for a second stage a new list of rulings on other important pending appeals, such as the one related to the legal reform that left the General Council of the Judiciary without the competence to make appointments while it is in office, or the one presented against the oath formulas of numerous deputies from minority groups, whose members agreed to their parliamentary positions without adhering to strict compliance with the Constitution, using various alternative expressions.

The sentence regarding the loss of the seat by Podemos deputy Alberto Rodríguez, sentenced to a fine for kicking a policeman in a demonstration that took place in La Laguna (Tenerife) in 2014, will also be known before the summer. .

Due to previous contacts between magistrates, court sources consider it highly probable that the Constitutional Court endorses the prohibition of said appointments by the Judiciary, as well as that it protects former deputy Alberto Rodríguez, considering that the loss of his seat implied a clear lack of proportionality between his behavior and the consequences that were derived from it.

In said media it is estimated that the question of the oaths of the deputies from minority groups will be highly debated, but that nothing in the sentence that is handed down will question the legitimacy of their access to parliamentary office.

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