Spain’s PP takes first step toward bringing ministers’ Senate absences before Constitutional Court

Spain’s People’s Party is preparing to turn ministers’ absences from the Senate into a constitutional dispute. The PP will bring motions censuring five ministers to the chamber’s September 8 plenary session and plans to raise a new conflict of powers over what it calls the government’s repeated failure to appear before the Senate.

The ministers named by the party are Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Defence Minister Margarita Robles, Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares, Health Minister Mónica García and Equality Minister Ana Redondo. The proposed censures concern their management of the situation in Ceuta.

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The empty chairs of the ministers cannot go unpunished.

Alicia García, the PP’s spokeswoman in the Senate, said the dispute marked the first step toward taking the issue to the Constitutional Court. “The empty chairs of the ministers cannot go unpunished,” she said, adding that the PP would continue taking to court what she described as the government’s decision to hide from the Senate and flee from Spaniards.

The conflict of powers would set constitutional state institutions against each other. If the dispute is not resolved within one month, it would proceed to the court headed by Cándido Conde-Pumpido.

García described the alleged incompetence of Marlaska, Albares and Robles as “a real disgrace”. She accused them of escaping to the Congress, where they could give explanations “in the chamber that suits them, on the date that suits them and under the conditions that suit them”. The three ministers had been summoned by the PP during August over events in Ceuta, but appeared before Congress instead.

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It is not an invitation. It is not institutional courtesy. It is a constitutional and parliamentary obligation.

The PP had already petitioned the Supreme Court for an interim order requiring the government to ensure that the ministers appeared within 24 hours. The Supreme Court’s holiday panel rejected the request, saying the party had not sufficiently shown that parliamentary oversight had to take place during the extraordinary August session to be effective.

The party is now relying on Article 110.1 of Spain’s Constitution, which allows both chambers to demand the presence of government members, and Article 66.2 of the Senate’s rules, which says executive members must appear. “It is not an invitation. It is not institutional courtesy. It is a constitutional and parliamentary obligation,” García said. She added that the government could not unilaterally choose which chamber would scrutinize it, when it would appear or under what conditions.

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The government cannot unilaterally choose which chamber scrutinizes it, when it appears or under what conditions it does so. Those subject to parliamentary oversight cannot choose who oversees them.