MADRID (Reuters) – The Spanish Constitutional Court has blocked the Senate from voting on a bill to change the way its judges are picked, in an unprecedented move late Monday that raises political tensions in Spain as it enters an election year.
The court, which has a conservative majority, accepted the centre-right opposition Popular Party’s request to halt the vote on a bill that reduces the majority needed to pick judges. The lower house had already approved the bill last week.
The bill comes as the mandate of a third of the court’s judges have expired and political parties have not been able to agree on replacements for at least the past four years.
The court generally rules on whether specific laws or decrees on socially divisive issues such as abortion, euthanasia or public education are in line with the constitution.
A first of its kind intervention before lawmakers vote on legislation raises fears about the balance of powers in a country only 44 years into democracy post the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.
“There are no precedents in Europe,” said Jose Antonio Martin Pallin, former magistrate of the Supreme Court, who described the situation as “depressing”.
The ruling coalition government led by Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez with the far-left party Unidas Podemos as a junior partner does not have a parliamentary majority in the Lower House.
However, it manages to pass the laws thanks to a piecemeal support from regional parties, including lawmakers supporting Catalonian independence.
The renewal of judicial bodies needs qualified majorities, a process that has been in a limbo as it requires a consensus between the Socialist Party and the conservative Popular Party, which has remained elusive.
“The institutions are being damaged and will lose their moral value and all the work they have done before”, said Lucrecio Rebollo, a professor of Constitutional law at Spain’s National University for Distance Learning.
(Reporting by Belén Carreño and Emma Pinedo; Editing by Aislinn Laing and Arun Koyyur)
