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Vox took a new step this Wednesday in its offensive against the so-called "Grandchildren's Law" by requesting before the Secretary of State for Justice the full nullification and provisional suspension of the Instruction approved by the Ministry of Justice in October 2022, which regulates the application of that norm.
If the request is granted, the administrative procedures for granting Spanish nationality currently being processed under that instruction would be provisionally suspended while the appeal is resolved.
The so-called "Grandchildren's Law", incorporated as the eighth additional provision of the Democratic Memory Law, allows children and grandchildren of Spanish exiles to obtain Spanish nationality, even if they reside abroad and have never lived in Spain.
According to information from La Vanguardia, Vox argues that the Instruction issued by the General Directorate of Legal Security and Public Faith extends the scope of the law beyond what was approved by the Cortes Generales, by including scenarios that, in their opinion, were not anticipated in the legal text.
"The General Directorate of Legal Security and Public Faith —whose head is the sister of Minister Óscar Puente— issues a directive that extends access to nationality far beyond the legal text," stated the party led by Santiago Abascal.
This is not the first legal initiative by the party against this regulation. Vox challenged the Law of Democratic Memory before the Constitutional Court, which accepted the appeal for processing on February 7, 2023. The high court has not yet issued a ruling.
The new legal action adds to the initiatives presented this week by the party to the Central Electoral Board. In an initial document, Vox requested an audit of the registrations in the Electoral Census of Absentee Residents (CERA), the suspension of new incorporations, and a review of the outsourcing contracts for the process, specifically mentioning the technology company NEORIS and the Palco Group, a Cuban state entity linked to the military conglomerate GAESA.
In a second motion, the organization requested the prohibition of mail-in voting from abroad, arguing that there are not sufficient guarantees regarding the identity of the voter and the security of the ballot.
The case of Cuba holds a central place in Vox's arguments. According to official data, more than 350,000 Cuban citizens have begun the process to obtain Spanish nationality under the Law of Democratic Memory, while the Consulate General of Spain in Havana has accumulated over 137,700 cases.
To address the increase in requests, the Spanish government awarded contracts worth between 1.1 and 1.6 million euros to Grupo Palco to enhance consular services with between 88 and 107 workers. Vox questions this hiring, recalling that the company belongs to the GAESA conglomerate, which has been sanctioned by the United States since May 2026.
The report also states that Cuba's absence from the Hague Convention hampers independent verification of the documentation used in nationality files.
The debate has also escalated into the political arena. Santiago Abascal accused the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, of attempting to "manufacture voters" through the implementation of the law.
"Sánchez rigged the primaries of his party and is trying to rig another one to stay in La Moncloa. Who knows what tricks he might have pulled all these years... We can't allow this!" wrote the leader of Vox on social media.
The criticisms have been echoed by leaders of the Popular Party. On Monday, Alberto Núñez Feijóo stated in an interview on EsRadio: "Since the current voters don’t add up, let’s see if by creating voters it works out." For her part, the President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, warned that granting nationality to those who do not meet the legal requirements "would also be doing something illegal."
The government rejected those accusations. The minister and spokesperson Elma Saiz described the opposition's statements as a "huge irresponsibility" and defended that the Law of Democratic Memory is based on criteria of "reparation and justice."
With this new resource, Vox continues to pursue its legal and political strategy against the application of the so-called "grandparents' law," a controversy that is likely to keep shaping public debate in the months leading up to the scheduled general elections in 2027.
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