Batet tries to put order after the rise in tone and demands “respect” from all political groups | The regulations of the Lower House allow deputies who insult other parliamentarians to be expelled
On November 21, 2018, the ERC leader, Gabriel Rufián, was expelled from the chamber of the Congress of Deputies by the then president of the Chamber, Ana Pastor. Her fault, as the popular leader pointed out, was to speak out of turn. Specifically, when the former Foreign Minister had the floor, Josep Borrell. since that disrespect even the outbursts, insults and personal attacks that have been experienced in Congress lately have not made similar decisions again. The rude and rude debate of days gone by has brought the current president, Meritxell Batetto be more severe, but only in their verbal reprimands and without making use of the mechanisms made available by the House regulations.
That the quality of the parliamentary debate has declined in recent years and that insults have normalized is an accepted reality inside and outside of politics. However, four years after Ruffian’s expulsion, the attacks by the Vox deputy Carla Toscano on the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, evidenced (more than on other occasions) the tension of the debate. “The only merit you have is having studied Pablo Iglesias in depthToscano said.
In the absence of Batet, the first vice president of Congress, Alfonso Rodríguez Gómez de Celis, announced that they would withdraw those words from the session journal. Montero asked that he not do it “so that everyone can remember political violence and those who exercise it.” The chamber, with the exception of the PP and Vox bench, erupted in long applause. Since then, the tension has not stopped growing. In an attempt to stop this escalation, Batet has tried to get his act together and give a warning to those who cross a line.
collective reprimand
After the hectic week, Batet called all formations to order. On Tuesday, at the Board of Spokespersons, the president of Congress was “very angry”, according to parliamentary sources, at the drift of the debates and demanded respect from them. He tried to impose this himself throughout the following days. Curiously, on Wednesday, the first admonished was Montero herself after accusing the PP of promoting “rape culture”, in reference to the advertising campaigns launched by the Xunta de Galicia and the Madrid’s communityboth territories run by conservatives, who place the responsibility on the victims and not on the aggressors.
Then he scolded the PP deputy Ana Belen Vazquez for uttering “insults” against the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and the leader of Vox Javier Ortega-Smith for describing the members of ERC and EH Bildu as “coup plotters” and “terrorists”. The next day, after the intervention of another Vox deputy, Batet stopped the plenary session again to make a plea in favor of “dignifying” politics. “I ask you again that every time you go up to this rostrum do not go up to hurt and offend. Go up to defend your political positions without offending and without hurting and you know perfectly well that there are certain expressions that the only thing you are looking for is that,” he sentenced.
“If this is not done, they know that an article of the regulation is being violated. Therefore, they are making interventions that are outside of article 16 of the regulations of the Congress of Deputies“he warned them.
The article 16 of the regulation, to which Batet referred, is just one of the mechanisms available to the president to order the debates. Specifically, she establishes that the deputies “they are obliged to adapt their conduct to the regulations and to respect parliamentary order, courtesy and discipline“. Those who do not comply with these premises and utter “words or concepts offensive to the decorum of the Chamber or its members, State Institutions or any other person or entity” may be expelled from the plenary session after being called to order three times according to articles 102, 103 Y 104.
However, sources from Batet’s team point out that the expulsion of a deputy means modifying parliamentary arithmetic emanated from the polls and, therefore, on a voting day this could be decisive, despite the fact that the regulations of Congress authorize you to do so.
This has only happened three times. In 2006, the then PP parliamentarian was expelled Vicente Martinez-Pujalte for rebuking former Defense Minister José Antonio Alonso. After three calls to order, he was asked to leave the chamber. The next time was the case of Rufián and the last one occurred in September 2021 when the Vox deputy was expelled Jose Maria Sanchez for calling socialist parliamentarian Laura Berja a “witch”. The ultra deputy refused to leave Congress and after a recess ended up withdrawing his words and staying in his seat.