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Appeal against the Ley de Extranjería

01 January 2004

On Friday 14 February 2004, the Basque parliament voted in favour of filing an appeal against the latest reform of the Ley de Extranjería (Aliens' Law, the Spanish immigration legislation) which came into force on 2 December 2003, on grounds of its unconstitutionality, something that the Defensor del Pueblo (Ombudsman) has refused to do, despite receiving several requests to do so. The Partido Popular and Partido Socialista voted against the initiative. The appeal deems that the norms to regulate the return of migrants to their countries of origin, to regulate migrant detention centres, and the granting of access and the right to use information from municipal (local council) records to the police, without the agreement of the people whose data is held, are unconstitutional. Dozens of local councils, especially in Catalunya and the Basque Country, are voting to refuse to pass on to the police information from the municipal registration records. The Madrid Tribunal, in turn, struck a legal blow against the reform of the criminal code that was approved by the government and envisages that judges should substitute prison sentences of under six years passed on migrants with expulsion. The ruling by the court rejects this amendment.