The presentation of a criminal complaint in Spain's Supreme Court against former king Juan Carles I by two Spanish left-wing parties, the United Left and the Communist Party, for "membership of a criminal structure" and six other alleged offences —bribery, improper management, fraud, tax irregularities, influence peddling and activities prohibited to public servants— is undoubtedly the key news story relating to the grand celebrations to mark the 40th anniversary of the Spanish constitution. Amongst all the pomp and circumstance over a constitution that has low levels of support among the public, it remains notable that the three elements of the body politic which made most concessions to accept the parliamentary monarchy and a transition to democracy today feel so distant from it that they question its foundations: they are, to describe them using the language of that time, the communists and the Catalan and Basque nationalists.
And, conversely, those who were most against the pact then are those who have since taken advantage of a text that acted as restraint and muzzle on civil and national rights. People don't mention it much, but everytime we talk about the support that the Constitution had in 1978, it is forgotten that all of those younger than 58 years old today were not able to vote for it. In absolute figures, that means that out of 34.5 million people on the Spanish electoral roll, about 25 million couldn't express a view. I know that there are other constitutions that are much older and that, consequently, were voted for by even fewer, or even none, of those still alive, but, of all of those, it is the Spanish magna carta that provokes the greatest opposition within its own electoral and territorial body.
The fact that the criminal complaint lodged includes Princess Corinna, the former lover of king Juan Carlos; the director of the main Spanish intelligence agency, lieutenant general Félix Sanz; business people Juan Miguel Villar Mir —the father-in-law of Javier López-Madrid, apparently involved in romantically-compromising messages to current queen Letizia— and former Telefónica CEO Juan Villalonga; former police commissioner José Manuel Villarejo; as well as various other names of lesser or greater familiarity to the public, raises to judicial level a debate that is already present in society: the limits of the king's inviolability with regard to actions that have nothing to do with his role as head of state. An authentic time bomb, likely to impact on three axes: the judicial, where surely, there will be a tendency to cover it up; the political, at a time when Spain's Congress has never had so many deputies in favour of a republic; and the public, where informal polls on the question have begun to spring up in municipalities and universities. And all this in addition to the total rupture of the Catalan institutions with the monarchy and the problems it faces in territories such as the Basque Country and the Balearic Islands.
The celebrations in memory of the constitution have been, above all, a closing of ranks by the constitutionalist parties, perhaps with the intention that the enormous cracks visible will thus be disguised. But that is already impossible today.