The Spanish government brings challenge against Commissioner for National Transition

Spain’s Council of Ministers is expected to file an appeal before Spain’s Constitutional Court against the Catalan government’s decree establishing the office of the Commissioner for National Transition, a post presently held by Carles Viver i Pi-Sunyer. The office is charged with carrying out the functions related to driving, coordinating, and implementing the necessary measures for the culmination of Catalonia’s national transition to independence, and with overseeing the creation of state structures.

The Spanish government will also challenge the Catalan government’s executive orders laying the groundwork for the preparation of Catalonia’s state structures, as well as its strategic infrastructure plan, in addition to ‘every project and action undertaken as part of this decree and its plans, or consistent with its purpose’. In its challenge, the Spanish Cabinet cites a conflict of competence and requests that the Constitutional Court automatically suspend the decree and its concomitant plans pursuant to Article 161.2 of the Constitution.

According to the Spanish government, the decree ‘violates the national sovereignty that resides in the Spanish people, the indivisible unity of the Spanish nation, the subjection of all citizens and public authorities to the Constitution and the Law, and the established procedures to reform the Constitution’.

If the Constitutional Court agrees to hear the Spanish government’s challenge, the decree will be automatically suspended.

This is the latest in a series challenges launched by the Spanish government against Catalan laws whose objective is to make effective the Catalan people’s right to decide, strengthen self-rule, and prepare the independence process.