The left will change the name of the Congress of Deputies, violating the Constitution

The leftist government led by Pedro Sánchez continues its efforts to change the Constitution through the back door.

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The newspaper El Mundo reports today that the government and its parliamentary partners will change the name of the Congress of Deputies, leaving it simply as "Congress", with the excuse of promoting "inclusive language", an attempt to modify the Spanish language to suit left-wing feminism that was already rejected by the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) in a comprehensive report in 2020.

However, grammatical reasons matter little to the coalition government of socialists and communists. El Mundo reports that the parties that make up Sánchez's cabinet, the PSOE and Sumar, will change the name of Congress with a simple amendment to its Rules of Procedure, which only requires a relative majority. The Popular Party (PP), Vox, and the Union of the Navarrese People (UPN) have already stated that they will vote against it.

The pretext for this change is that left-wing feminists believe that the word "diputados" (deputies) does not include women, contrary to the criteria of the RAE (Royal Spanish Academy). Once again, and as has been common in Spain for years, the left is imposing its most questionable opinions and doing so in violation of constitutional law, as is happening in this case and as has already happened in other cases.

We must remember that the current name of "Congress of Deputies" is determined by Article 66 of the Spanish Constitution, point 1 of which states the following:

"The Cortes Generales represent the Spanish people and are made up of the Congress of Deputies and the Senate."

To reform this constitutional article, the government would need a qualified majority, with at least three-fifths of the lower house of parliament. Since the government doesn't have that majority, it simply skips the constitutional reform process and changes the name of one of the chambers of the Cortes Generales with a simple amendment to a regulation. It's outrageous.

It should be noted that this is not the first time the Sánchez government has done something like this. In 2022, the government already changed the name of the Ejército del Aire (Spanish Air Force) to "Ejército del Aire y del Espacio" (Air and Space Force), imitating a similar change made in France in 2020. This change was made by Royal Decree, overriding Article 8 of the Constitution, point 1 of which establishes the names of the Spanish Armed Forces:

"The mission of the Armed Forces, made up of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, is to guarantee the sovereignty and independence of Spain, defend its territorial integrity, and defend the constitutional order."

Now the left is no longer content with changing the name of one branch of the Armed Forces: Now they're changing the name of one of the chambers that represents the Spanish people, without reaching any consensus with the opposition and disregarding the Constitution. What's next? Changing the name of Spain to "Pedroland" by simple decree?

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Photo: Javier Martin Espartosa.