Constitutional Court guarantees equality in electoral lists in Spain

According to sources from within the Constitutional Court it has given its full backing to the Law on Equality which makes it obligatory for political parties to present electoral lists that represent women in equal numbers to men despite an appeal by the PP main opposition party against this. Apparently only one member of the court, the conservative magistrate Jorge Rodríguez Zapata, opposed this decision which will be officially announced within the next few days.

The PP group within the Spanish parliament presented an appeal against this clause in the Equality law in June last year on the grounds that the rule on equality in electoral lists violated up to 6 constitutional precepts including the freedom of political parties to chose their own candidates, the freedom of ideology and even political pluralism.

In regional elections held in May last year all parties were forced to come up with electoral lists that did not consist of more than 60% men or less than 40% men or women. This norm meant that one of the electoral lists - in Garachico, Tenerife - presented by the PP was banned because it only consisted of women.

The decision by the Constitutional Court also undermines the question of unconstitutionality presented by courts in Tenerife against the banning of the PP’s electoral list in Garachico.