Spanish Constitutional Court Rejects Franco Family's Appeal To Halt Dictator's Exhumation

The Spanish Constitutional Court did not accept the appeal put forward by the family of dictator Francisco Franco, who ruled the country from 1939 until his death in 1975, against the Supreme Court's decision to exhume his remains

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 17th October, 2019) The Spanish Constitutional Court did not accept the appeal put forward by the family of dictator Francisco Franco, who ruled the country from 1939 until his death in 1975, against the Supreme Court's decision to exhume his remains.

In late September, the Supreme Court decided that the dictator's remains could be exhumed without issue. Later, acting Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo said that Franco's remains would be reburied by October 25. Members of the Franco family filed an appeal to the court's decision.

"The first section of the Constitutional Court unanimously decided to reject the appeal of the Francisco Franco Bahamonde family to ... a decision ... of the Supreme Court of September 30, 2019," the ruling says.

The document noted that the court found no violations of fundamental rights.

The exhumation of Franco was one of the first decisions Pedro Sanchez's socialist government made after coming to power in June 2018. In August of that year, the government adopted a decree amending the 2007 law on historical memory to say that the Valley of the Fallen memorial monument should only house the remains of people who died in the Spanish Civil War and not those of the late dictator, whose government oversaw thousands of executions.

The Franco family opposed the measure and proposed, as the only alternative, that the remains be moved to the crypt of Madrid's Almudena Cathedral where the dictator's daughter and son-in-law are buried. The authorities refused this option and decided to rebury Franco at the cemetery of El Pardo, alongside his late wife.

In June the Supreme Court agreed to postpone the exhumation a few days before it was supposed to happen until a decision on the merits of the Franco family's claim was made. The judges unanimously dismissed the lawsuit on September 24. On October 10, the court removed the last legal obstacles to exhumation.

The government will give Franco's family 48-hour notice of the exhumation.