Finally, The Socialist Parliamentary Group registered yesterday in Congress the organic amnesty bill for institutional, political and social normalization in Catalonia. It was only hours after the president of the Cortes, Francina Armengol will call the plenary session to discuss the investiture of Pedro Sánchez starting next Wednesday. There is, therefore, no type of duplicity: one thing goes with another, at the very least, one thing goes with the other. In accordance with the agreements made public in recent days, both the investiture and the bill will be approved by an absolute majority thanks to the support of eight parliamentary groups: PSOE, Sumar, Esquerra, Junts, Bildu, PNV, BNG and Canarian Coalition. It is fruitless to debate the legitimacy of this barter, but It is inevitable to discuss its political opportunity and its adjustment to legality. This is the procedure that must be put in place, first when both things are debated in Congress and, subsequently, when they are debated in whatever national and international bodies are competent to judge them.
Almost nobody, Only those who, from one trench or another, ignore the complexity of reality, can oppose the goal defined by the bill: «institutional, political and social normalization in Catalonia». The doubt is in the middle, the amnesty to a series of “acts determining criminal, administrative or accounting liability in the framework of the consultations held in Catalonia on November 9, 2014 and October 1, 2017, their preparation or consequences provided that they were carried out between the “January 1, 2012 and November 13, 2023.” The explanatory memorandum endeavors to defend the constitutionality of the amnesty and its conformity with the EU acquis, preventively to the most likely resources that will be presented by both political and judicial bodies. But what is not captured clearly enough is the defense of its contribution to the general interest, which is the condition for fitting it into the doctrine of the Constitutional Court itself. The defenders of the project insist on its effectiveness in turning the page, but they should look for a way, throughout the parliamentary process, to prevent the new one that is opened now from leaving out the Catalans who did not participate, neither approved nor applauded the acts. crimes that the law seeks to forgive. Beyond its legal adequacy, the project lacks the necessary consensus that links it to something more general than the investiture of a president of the Government of Spain. There is no commitment to abandon certain political practices that are condoned, although, as of today, they remain criminal.
It is not necessary to defend another candidate for the presidency of the Government, nor to be concerned about the unity of Spain nor to feel longing for any past time, to see that no matter how laudable the goal that is stated, the medium is more than doubtful, legally, as the courts will say, but also politically as at one time or another the polls will say. And this does not prevent us from evaluating the efforts of the promoters of the norm to dialogue within the rule of law. Nothing would be more desirable than in a short space of time for everyone, including those who did not vote for the law, to feel that Catalonia and the whole of Spain have been normalized.