The Constitutional Court considers that the decision of the president of the Congress of Deputies, Meritxell Batet, to withdraw from the Chamber's session journal the expression "is the son of a terrorist" used by the deputy is not manifestly "arbitrary or discriminatory". of the PP Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo in the interpellation addressed to the then second vice president and minister of Social Rights and the 2030 Agenda, Pablo Iglesias, for considering it contrary to decorum.
In the sentence, for which Judge César Tolosa has been a rapporteur, the Second Chamber of the TC maintains that Batet's decision, in a session of Congress in May 2020, was not manifestly arbitrary or discriminatory because the word "terrorist" has a "pejorative denotation of maximum intensity".
According to the court, the attribution of this condition to the father of the former leader of Podemos "objectively entailed an unequivocal discredit for those who, however, were completely oblivious to the debate."
Therefore, in the opinion of the guarantee body, the presidential decision could not be considered manifestly arbitrary for a reasonable observer.
Neither can the decision be described as discriminatory, since Álvarez de Toledo has not been able to identify similar situations that occurred in the lower house with different outcomes.
The sentence recognizes the freedom of speech of the representatives in the Congress of Deputies, although it warns of the power of the presidency to limit its scope. The magistrates recall that Batet's decision was a public reproach or reproach for the deputy, who was asked to withdraw such words. Faced with her refusal, in the session diary, which was recorded literally, it was included in brackets: "words withdrawn by the Presidency, in accordance with article 104.3 of the Regulations of the Chamber."
The court affirms that said agreement of the Presidency of the Chamber, by being able to restrict or mediate, and not merely limit, the free expression of the members of the Chambers, is susceptible to constitutional control. Therefore, if the decision was manifestly unreasonable or arbitrary and had a discriminatory nature, it should be verified that freedom of speech was irregularly disturbed, which was not the case, according to the court, in this case.
