Spanish Law

Is Catalonia a nation or is Spain the only nation in, well, Spain? The Spanish right has a clear idea of the right answer; some Catalans and Spanish socialists think they have a different one. Spain’s Constitutional Court will soon tell us what it thinks and attempt to set the rules for the ‘what is Spain’ debate.

Spain’s highest judicial authority – the General Council of Judicial Power – has voted 3 (two socialists and a Basque nationalist) – 2 (conservatives) to reject an initial report on Zapatero’s new Abortion Bill.

Jess has written in this week from the UK asking for a bit of help with her A-level project on Spanish and English criminal law. Luckily, I’ve been teaching a Spanish Judge English for the last two years and we’ve commented many of the major differences.

Spanish judges may not conscientiously object to marrying homosexual people, according to a new judgement issued by Spain’s Supreme Court. Valencia based judge Pablo de la Rubia Comos had asked to be exempted from his same-sex marriage duties.

Spain’s Supreme Court has decided to allow a private prosecution for misconduct in public office to be brought against star Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón after he investigated the disappearance of people during the Spanish Civil War and Franco’s dictatorship.

A friend who works for the Spanish Justice system reliably informs me that the system is currently on the brink of collapse: judges and Justice Ministry civil servants are planning to strike over an administrative workload 250% greater than the system was designed to deal with.