Spanish premier calls for calm amid constitutional crisis

OVIEDO, Spain

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called for calm in a televised speech on Tuesday, after the Constitutional Court moved to paralyze a vote in the Senate.

“This is serious because, for the first time ever, democratically elected members of Parliament are impeded from representing the public, debating and legislating,” said Sanchez.

The Spanish leader said the clash between the legislative and judicial branches is not only unprecedented in Spanish democracy, but in all of Europe.

“To all citizens, I want to send a message of calm. Spain is a great European democracy and we have mechanisms to overcome situations of this nature,” he said.

The Constitutional Court, which has been mired in deadlock for more than four years because the conservative Popular Party refuses to back the election of two new judges, blocked an upcoming Senate vote regarding how new judges would be named.

The conservative judges have a majority. They ruled six to five that the move to reform the court was not constitutional as the reform was included as an amendment to a non-related bill.

Sanchez said the government has no choice but to comply with the court’s decision.

However, he added that the government “will adopt as many measures as needed to end the unjustifiable blockade of the judicial power and the Constitutional Court.”

In October, the head of Spain’s Supreme Court resigned in protest over four years of judicial deadlock. His move, however, failed to nudge politicians to agree to renew the members of the court.

While it is the ruling progressive government’s turn to appoint new members of the court, the Popular Party is demanding to reform how members of the judicial governing body are elected before agreeing to renew the judges.

While Spain’s progressive politicians are warning that the court’s decision to suspend the Senate vote calls into question the separation of power and threatens to “delegitimize” the democratic system, opposition politicians are celebrating the decision.

Popular Party spokesperson Cuca Gamarra on Tuesday accused the government of trying to “steamroll” the rights of the minority parties by sneaking a major reform into another bill.