No one is massing tanks or seizing radio stations. But the country is in its biggest institutional mess for years
given to political hyperbole. For weeks, politicians of all stripes have been warning of dire threats to democracy. On December 19th, after the country’s constitutional court voted 6-5 along political lines on a crucial rule-of-law issue, many described it as a “coup”. In a parliamentary debate before the vote, a SocialistThis is an exaggeration: the conflict at the constitutional court centres on who has the power to appoint its judges. Still, the gloom-mongers have a point.
In November the national government went further, promising to abolish the crime of sedition and to replace it with the seemingly innocuous charge of “aggravated public disorder”. It also said it would split the crime of “misuse of funds” in two. Personal corruption would be severely punished, while misusing funds for holding an illegal referendum would be treated more leniently. These big concessions to the Catalans outraged Spanish conservatives.
The conflict centres on Spain’s constitutional court. The terms of four of that court’s justices have expired, but they continue to serve: the People’s Party , the main conservative opposition group, refuses to vote on new judges with Mr Sánchez in office—on the grounds that judges, not politicians, should pick the most senior members of the judiciary.
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