Elections in times of pandemic: regarding the suspension of the elections in Euskadi and Galicia and the cancellation of the suspension of the elections in Catalonia

Abstract

The health emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, which led to the declaration of a state of alarm, took place at a time when parliamentary elections were being called in the Autonomous Communites of the Basque Country and Galicia. The circumstances of the moment led the presidents of both Communities, who had called the elections as a consequence of their decision to dissolve the respective Chambers in advance, to suspend the elections due to the impossibility of holding them under those conditions. A suspension that lacks legal coverage, but that was taken as a measure of necessity, which legitimated that suspension. However, this paper discusses the fact that the elections were suspended instead of repealing, in its entirety, the decree of early dissolution of the Chamber and the calling of elections. It is argued that these are two inseparable elements, mutually dependent, as can be seen from the constitutional regulation, so that, even more strictly in a parliamentary system of government, it is not possibleble to maintain a fully functioning government with a Parliament. with limited powers, except in the strict terms of the development of the electoral process. The reestablishment of the legislature is no less acceptable, in a situation of necessity, than the suspension of the elections; indeed, it is the logical consequence of the suspension of the electoral process. The issue of the judicial annulment of the Prorogation of Parliament in the United Kingdom is a sign of the “naturalness” of this reestablishment.

A year later, approximately, the elections to the Parlament were called and later suspended; a decision that was annulled by the TSJ of Catalonia. The time that has elapsed and the consequent evolution of the situation –among others, the disappearance of the urgency that occurred in the case of the Basque and Galician elections– meant that there was no longer a situation of need, of a sudden and unexpected nature. The text defends the legal correctness of the court's decision, whose argumentation in the motivation of the decision fully fits into the framework developed from the assumption of those first elections and their suspension.