The resounding denial to this newspaper of King Juan Carlos about the sudden paternity of this Alejandra should be enough to settle the matter, at least if new data does not emerge that contributes something to this story.
However, the news, which in a few seconds grew like wildfire yesterday, like everything that has to do with the Emeritus in recent years, well serves to reflect once again on the holes that afflict the regulation of our Monarchy, which Anyone would say that it is the core institution on which our entire system is based, as stated in the Fundamental Law of 1978.
If it is shameful, without going any further, that our main parties have refused after almost half a century of constitutional stage to reform article 57.1 that, to the same degree, gives priority to men over women in the succession to the throne -a stain that will be unavoidable when the Princess of Asturias is sworn in as heir in a few months, once she reaches the age of majority-, it is equally devastating that successive governments and legislatures have closed their eyes to nonsense that affects the same question of succession.
Thus, our Constitution says that “the Crown of Spain is hereditary in the successors of His Majesty Don Juan Carlos I de Borbón, legitimate heir of the historic dynasty.” By successors we mean descendants -they did not have their best day when drafting the articles of the Fathers of the Magna Carta in full Transition-. And, due to an oversight, due to real disinterest in the institution or a desire to party, the article that was promulgated says nothing about children born from legitimate marriage or outside of it. This thing about legitimate children may sound grating, anachronistic in 2023. But it supposes, however, a more than necessary guarantee when it comes to an institution like the Monarchy, in which there is nothing more substantial than the question of succession to guarantee the permanence, stability and dynastic continuity that constitutes one of the advantages that they justify the maintenance of the Crown in those democratic countries where it was not devastated by the republican tsunami that characterized the 20th century, in the expression of Ignacio Molina.
In the Monarchies of our environment, including of course the European ones, their Constitutions or the laws that regulate the operation of the singular institution clearly distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate children of the king or queen. It is a stability safeguard. Because there are no 100% effective antidotes against the unexemplary, unedifying behavior of sovereigns in their most intimate sphere. And positive law must anticipate hypothetical scenarios and not leave situations of such importance to chance.
As if we had nowhere to compare. In Monaco, Alberto, his sovereign prince, set at least an example by recognizing his paternity in two cases, Jazmin Grace and Alexandre, born from two different extramarital affairs. Both are sons of the head of state with all of the law. Never better said. Because that means that they are neither part of the royal family nor do they have inheritance rights, since the Constitution of the micro-state states that only the legitimate descendants of the holder of the Crown are linked to it.
And in Belgium, the same. He often compares the previous King of the Belgians, Alberto II, with our Emeritus, Don Juan Carlos. Both have had to face public paternity lawsuits. While both were on the throne, inviolability acted as a protective shield also in the face of a matter of a civil and personal nature. But once they abdicated, the supreme courts of the respective countries accepted the requirements, although here in 2015 the Supreme Court archived the lawsuit filed by the Belgian citizen Ingrid Sartiau shortly after admitting it, considering that there was not enough evidence to continue the procedure. It was not the Belgian case. Delphine Boël got the Justice to recognize his parentage – Alberto II himself would later admit, after years of refusing, that he was indeed the father. And even more. The courts agreed with Boël, who fought to be granted the right to use the title of princess. But, yes, neither she -nor logically her descendants- are part of the dynastic line. That’s already big words, of course. And in Belgium, as in any nation that takes its Monarchy seriously, its Law of Laws excludes the illegitimate children of kings from the chain to the throne. It is about preserving the institution above all else.
Spain is wow. Here the Legislator knows that the Crown cares about what it cares about. And if someone suddenly emerges who, in this case, brings a paternity claim against Don Juan Carlos to Justice and wins in court, he would automatically become part of the succession order in a line that would also reach his descendants, in the if you had them. The new son or daughter of the Emeritus would also be automatically elevated to the dignity of Infante or Infanta, with the treatment of Royal Highness, as regulated in Royal Decree 1368/1987, of November 6, on the Regime of titles, treatments and honors from the Royal Family and the Regency.
Don’t worry, the reader, that the latest shock about the paternity of Don Juan Carlos will not push our irresponsible parties to touch a comma of that cheese of that Gruyere cheese that is Title II of the Constitution that, as defended by the prestigious constitutionalist Antonio Torres del Moral, “it should have been touched up a long time ago because it needs updating and not a few changes.”
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