The Constitutional Court admitted this Wednesday a challenge by the Government of Spain against the law of the Community of Madrid that authorizes the Executive of Isabel Díaz Ayuso to exercise popular prosecution in crimes of public disorder, arson, and attacks on heritage. That text, which according to La Moncloa invades state competencies, not only represents the commitment to the hard line embodied by the Madrid baroness in the PP. It is also, in part, a response to a specific event: the suspension of the final stage of the 2025 Vuelta a España, as it passed through Madrid, due to protests against the participation of a team sponsored by Israel amid the siege of Gaza. This was admitted by the regional Government itself when it approved the text last March. Now the law is suspended until the Constitutional Court decides on the substance of the matter.
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“Mr. Sánchez will have to explain why he does not want the Autonomous Communities to protect women, or to be able to protect natural heritage, or historical-artistic heritage, which is what that law enables,” said the spokesperson of the Community of Madrid, Miguel Ángel García Martín, during the press conference he held this Wednesday after the meeting of the regional Government council. “Mr. Sánchez does not like popular prosecution because he has a very committed circle, Begoña Gómez, his wife, precisely because of issues that have come from popular prosecutions,” he continued. “And that is why he wants to end it.”
In reality, the Community of Madrid could already exercise popular action in cases of gender violence or those affecting victims of terrorism before approving the law now being questioned. This is precisely reflected in , which extended that faculty to particularly serious public disorders, attacks on cultural heritage, and also on natural heritage (the latter designed to punish those who cause fires).
However, the Government of Spain considers that this approach affects its competencies. And not only that. In mid-July, when the State decided to file its challenge before the Constitutional Court, it argued that only the central Government can regulate popular action, and that the Madrid regulation “extends that legitimacy without legal coverage, compromises procedural equality, and alters the unity of the criminal system.”
“While the Criminal Procedure Law only allows public legal entities to exercise popular action when protecting a specific and identifiable victim, the Madrid law does so regarding crimes with collective legal goods – environment, historical heritage, public disorders – without an individualized victim,” the Council of Ministers explained then.
The Constitutional Court expands on this in a press release: “The President of the Government alleges in his claim that the regulation could be contrary to article 149.1.6ª of the Constitution, which establishes as exclusive competence of the State procedural legislation.”
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LGTBI Law
The suspension of the law promoted by Díaz Ayuso opens a new front between the two administrations and reconfirms the Constitutional Court as the preferred arena for clashes in regional politics just as the 2027 regional elections already appear on the horizon. The conflict is two-way, since the Community of Madrid has become, with the PP baroness at the helm, the region that litigates the most with the government of Spain. Consequently, the court of guarantees must rule in the coming months on numerous matters raised by both administrations, and also by the left-wing opposition (Más Madrid and PSOE) and right-wing (Vox) in the Assembly of Madrid.
So far in 2026, the Constitutional Court has reproached the Assembly for processing laws in a single reading that allowed the Community to establish its control over Telemadrid in 2021 and 2022. It has also overturned the veto on questioning the powerful chief of staff of the president, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, or the businesses of entrepreneur Alberto González Amador, investigated for alleged tax fraud while he was the partner of the baroness and lived with her.
Previously, in 2025, the court struck down a significant part of the reform of the LGTBI law of the Díaz Ayuso Government, which had already taken preventive measures before the wound with a preventive modification in anticipation of the likely adverse ruling.
Now comes the turn of the popular action law of Madrid, which the Constitutional Court will analyze just as the countdown to the 2027 spring regional elections begins.