The Constitutional Court has endorsed the decision of the president of the Congress, Meritxell Batet, to withdraw from the diary of sessions the affirmation of the deputy of the PP Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo that Pablo Iglesias was "son of a terrorist". The court has reported on Monday that it has dismissed the appeal filed by Álvarez de Toledo.

"I'm going to tell you for the first and last time: you are the son of a terrorist. To that aristocracy you belong, to that of political crime," said the deputy in a plenary session in May 2020. After Batet's decision, that phrase was finally placed in the newspaper in square brackets and in italics and accompanied by a footnote: "Words withdrawn by the Presidency, in accordance with Article 104.3 of the Rules of Procedure of the House."

The Second Chamber of the TC considers that the decision of the president, who alleged that the expression used was "contrary to decorum", is not "manifestly arbitrary or discriminatory".

Nor could it be described as discriminatory, because there is no evidence that something like this would have been allowed before: "The appellant has not identified cases of similar tenor that would have passed without presidential correction."

The decision comes after a court of first instance in Zamora rejected the lawsuit of Iglesias' father for the alleged interference in his honor of the deputy. The judge refused to grant compensation considering that there was an "undoubted factual basis" in the affirmation, given the repeated mentions of the former leader of Podemos to the militancy of his father in the Frap.

In the resolution of the Constitutional Court, focused solely on the withdrawal of the diary of sessions, the magistrates emphasize that the word terrorist "has a pejorative denotation of the maximum intensity and the attribution of that condition to the father of the interpelado objectively entailed an unequivocal discredit for whom, however, was completely alien to the debate, so that the Presidential decision could not be considered manifestly arbitrary for a reasonable observer. "

"Disapproval"

The resolution, of which the magistrate César Tolosa has been rapporteur, maintains that the freedom of speech of the representatives of the citizens is "essential" for "the institutionalization of the political debate in the key of freedom and pluralism". And that Batet's decision led to "a public reprobation or reproach for the deputy."

It is added that the agreement of the Presidency to "restrict or mediate" the debate is susceptible to constitutional control, although with limits "especially rigorous, which are the parliamentary autonomy from which result the rules relating to the power of the president of a Chamber in order to direct the debates and, specifically, to the assessment of whether or not specific words affect decorum". "Without the Court," the sentence concludes, "being able to subrogate itself in the position of the Presidency of the Congress of Deputies."

  • Constitutional court
  • Can
  • PP
  • Meritxell Batet
  • Justice

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Learn more