The TC forces (for the moment) the PP to apply the Balearic memory law to avoid the "lack of protection of the victims"

PalmaThe Constitutional Court (TC) maintains in a new ruling the precautionary suspension of the repeal of the Democratic Memory Law of the Balearic Islands that the PP and Vox approved last March. In an interlocutory order reported by the Ministry of the Presidency, the high court obliges the Marga Prohens Government to keep it in force, until it resolves the substance of the issue of the appeal of unconstitutionality presented by the Spanish government. It considers that the challenge "is based on substantive grounds," such as "the violation of international human rights law, human dignity, and the right to moral integrity," and on the fact that maintaining its repeal may imply "the lack of protection for victims of serious human rights violations".

It is the second pronouncement by the Constitutional Court maintaining the suspension of the repeal of the law, although on this occasion there have been three dissenting votes from five magistrates: two against maintaining the suspension and a third against lifting the suspension of article 2. It considers the arguments presented by the Spanish government "reasonable", according to which repealing the law entails a risk of "irreparable damage" to the victims. "The maintenance of the suspension is based on the double consideration of the irreparable damage that the lifting would imply in relation to the fulfillment of the duty of regional collaboration with state regulations and with the rights of victims of serious human rights violations", explains the interlocutory order. Without entering into the merits of the matter, the TC resolves to maintain the suspension of the articles repealing the Memory Law, but lifts the suspension of article two of the regulation approved by the right-wing parties, which refers to freedom of expression, production and creation and academic freedom. The Government has expressed its "respect for the judicial decision".

In the pronouncement, the high court also explains that the challenge argues jurisdictional issues: "Specifically, the infringement of the principle of collaboration and of the articles that attribute powers to the State". It also cites the jurisprudence in relation to the suspension of other regional memory laws, such as that of the Valencian Country and Cantabria. In these cases, it states, a "situation of risk to fundamental rights" was already appreciated.

"From the point of view of the judgment of proportionality inherent to the weighting regarding the appropriateness of maintaining a suspension measure (...), given the existence of irreparable and irreversible damage to public and private interests, it cannot be qualified as excessive or disproportionate to maintain the suspension", argues the legal text.

The state law does not replace the regional one

On the other hand, the court rejects the argument of the Balearic Government, according to which the state democratic memory law can replace the regional one, since the repeal of the norm "implies a lowering of the level of protection for victims in the affected regional scope which, legitimately or not, which will be elucidated in the sentence, would remain limited".