Passive franchise

1. All Spanish citizens of age having the legal capacity to vote are eligible, provided they do not fall within any of the following causes of ineligibility:

a) Members of the Spanish Royal Family included in the Civil Register created by Royal Decree 2917/1981, of November 27, as well as their spouses;

b) The Presidents of the Constitutional Court, of the Supreme Court, of the Council of State, of the Auditing Court and of the Council referred to in Section 131.2 of the Constitution;

c) Judges of the Constitutional Court, members of the General Judiciary Council (Consejo General del Poder Judicial), Standing Councillors of State and members of the Auditing Court;

d) The Ombudsman (Defensor del Pueblo);

e) The State’s Attorney-General;

f) Undersecretaries, Secretaries-General, Directors-General of Ministries and departments with equivalent status and, in particular, Directors of the Prime Minister’s Cabinet and Directors of Ministers’ and State Secretaries’ Cabinets;

g) Accredited Heads of diplomatic Missions with official residence in a foreign State or in an international organization.

h) Higher judges, judges and public prosecutors in active service;

i) Professional and reserve military officers as well as members in general of Armed Forces and Security and Police Corps in active service;

j) Chairmen, members and secretaries of Electoral Commissions;

k) Government’s Delegates in Self-governing Communities, Deputy-delegates and similar authorities with a different territorial jurisdiction;

l) The Chairman of the Radio and Television Authority (RTVE) and of companies belonging to said Authority;

m) Presidents, Directors and similar officers of autonomous state organizations with a responsibility all over the national territory, as well as the respective Government’s Delegates;

n) Presidents and Directors-General of Social Security Managing Boards with responsibility for the whole national territory;

o) The Director of the Electoral Register Office;

p) The Governor and the Deputy-Governor of the Bank of Spain and the Presidents and Directors of the Official Credit Institute and all other official credit bodies, and

q) The Chair, councillors and Secretary-General of General Council Nuclear Security Council.

2. The following are also ineligible:

a) Persons sentenced to imprisonment by a final court’s decision, for the term of their conviction.

b) Persons convicted, even if judgment is not yet final, for rebellion, terrorism or other offences against the State where the judgment has imposed the penalty of forfeiture of eligibility according to criminal law or the penalty of total or specific disqualification or suspension from public office in the terms laid down by criminal law statutes.

3. The following are ineligible during their tenure of office in constituencies within the whole or part of their respective area of jurisdiction:

a) Persons discharging the highest level functions of each Ministry in the different territorial divisions below the area of the State.

b) Chairmen, directors and similar officers of autonomous organizations with a limited territorial jurisdiction, as well as Government’s delegates in those organizations.

c) Territorial delegates of the Radio and Television Authority and Directors of Television Stations reporting to Self-governing Communities.

d) Chairmen and directors of the Social Security’s regional or provincial management boards.

e) Secretaries-general of Government’s Delegations and Subdelegations.

f) Provincial Delegates of the Electoral Register Office.

4. Causes for ineligibility shall also be causes for disqualification (incompatibilidad). The latter shall be governed by the legal provisions for each type of election.

Disqualification also applies to persons elected in lists of candidates presented by parties, federations or electors’ groupings that are pronounced as illegal at a later day by a final judicial decision, as well as to persons elected in lists of candidates submitted by electors’ groupings directly connected to a party pronounced illegal by a court’s final decision. Disqualification takes effect within fifteen natural days from notification by the permanent election authority of the cause for disqualification to the persons concerned, unless these persons voluntarily make before said authority a statement clearly and unmistakably disavowing and repudiating the causes that have led to the pronouncement as illegal of the party, the federation or the electoral grouping in whose list those persons have been elected, or, as the case may be, of the party to which said electors’ grouping has declared its allegiance.

If during the discharge of the mandate gained on the basis of the statement contemplated in the foregoing paragraph the person so elected withdraws in any way said declaration or appears to adopt by deed, omission or publicly expressed opinion a contrary course of behaviour, he is deemed to have irretrievably incurred the cause for disqualification referred to in this present subsection. The disqualification shall take effect from the notification made to this end by the permanent election authority either directly or, on the Government’s request, through the State’s Advocate or the Public Prosecutor’s Office.

In cases contemplated in the two foregoing paragraphs the person concerned and also the Government through the State’s Advocate and the Public Prosecutor’s Office may lodge an appeal before the special Section of the Supreme Court set up in Section 61 of the Judicial Power’s Institutional Act, within the terms laid down in Section 49 of this present Act.

The same disqualifications apply, once a political formation has been pronounced illegal, to members of the list of said formation, including their alternates, who were to take the seats that have thus become vacant.

 1.K) AS AMENDED BY INSTITUTIONAL ACT 2/2011, OF JANUARY 28  1.L) AS AMENDED BY SAID INSTITUTIONAL ACT 2/2011, OF JANUARY 28  SECT. 2 AS AMENDED BY SECT. 5 OF INSTITUTIONAL ACT 1/2003 OF MARCH 10  2.B) AS AMENDED BY SAID INSTITUTIONAL ACT 1/2003, OF MARCH 10  3.E) AS AMENDED BY SAID INSTITUTIONAL ACT 3/2003, OF MARCH 10  SECT. 4 ADDED BY SECT. 2 OF INSTITUTIONAL ACT 3/2011, OF MARCH 24