The decision of the Constitutional Court (CC), considering that the King cannot right or wrongly be criticised by a Parliament, in this case the Catalan, is, from any objective standpoint, an affront to the decisions of a legislative chamber that is the highest representative of popular sovereignty. The CC, which has approved the ruling unanimously, exceeded its powers when annulling the bill passed by the Catalan Parliament censuring the monarch for his positioning in the unfortunate speech of the 3rd October 2017, two days after the independence referendum. The fact that the Catalan Parliament has not added to this any legislative initiative, and that it has merely issued a political statement, means that this is an issue that concerns the deputies' freedom of expression, and that exceeds the expectations of the CC's scope of action.
This was also the understanding by the Spanish Council of State -not exactly a subversive body- whose members come from among the most distinguished of the Spanish transition regime, take the presidency held by María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, or illustrious members such as Landelino Lavilla, Miguel Herrero de Miñón or Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, among others. Well then, the Council of State (CoS) issued an unfavorable report where it said that the Catalan Parliament's statement had no legal effect. Pedro Sánchez ignored that report, which was not binding, and went to the CC, where he found as unanimous a support as suspicious from the legal point of view, and arbitrary to say the least. Even knowing that it did not have legal effects, a story is made up that it will have. Which makes it unconstitutional. Curious times when if something cannot be proved it will be made to enter a new theory of attempts. All, the Spanish Supreme Court, and the Prosecutors and CoS offices are increasingly mastering this theory, actually, in the 1st October trial they have developed a complete theory of attempted rebellion, attempted sedition, attempted embezzlement... one really does not know just where it all begins and where it will end.
Thus, the Constitutional decision completed a dangerous arbitrariness that does not appear in the Spanish Magna Carta. There, in Título II, article 56 section 3 -which speaks of the Crown- it is established that the person of the King is inviolable and shall not be held accountable. To the inviolability -always controversial since it is a space of opacity that marries badly with the current times- we can now add the censorship that may be applied to anyone who wants to contravene the said rules in a parliament, government or a town hall. Expressing dissent from the king is thus forbidden, even when it lacks practical value and, therefore, even when it does not entail any legal effect. The King is still king even after his having been questioned and even when what was being issued was a mere political statement. What the CC is telling us now is that besides being inviolable, the king is now uncriticisable. We are going backwards by leaps and bounds.