President Marga Prohens' Constitution Day address on Saturday referred to institutional "degradation" in Spain, with clear criticisms directed at her predecessor, now speaker (president) of Congress, Francina Armengol, and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Prohens denounced the "instrumentalisation of institutions, not as tools at the service of the general interest of citizens, but as tools at the service of partisan interests".
In a reference to the now former state attorney general, Álvaro García Ortiz, Prohens said: "We have seen how the independence of key institutions in our institutional framework has been undermined and placed at the service of destroying political adversaries, leading to dangerous power imbalances in Spain."
She also criticised the Spanish Government for "stealing decisions that belong to the judiciary through pardons and amnesties that undermine a basic principle of our democracy and our Constitution, namely the separation of powers".
The president took aim at Francina Armengol for having blocked the processing of "laws that have majority support in the chamber because they lack the support of the Government of Spain". Prohens had in mind proposals such as the Partido Popular's anti-squatting law. Armengol also came in for criticism for having "vetoed critical media outlets".
Prohens expressed her "pride" in the Constitution, appealing to the spirit of the transition to democracy and acknowledging the role of the monarchy - one not mentioned by the Spanish Government's delegate in the Balearics, Alfonso Rodríguez, who instead focused on the end of the Franco dictatorship. Prohens called for the defence of the Constitution against "those who seek to undermine it and those who seek to build walls that divide and pit us against each other".