After another agonizing negotiation, the PSOE has not finished closing all the partial amendments to the amnesty with ERC and Junts. At the limit of the established deadline, the socialists have registered almost a dozen modifications agreed with the Catalan republicans, in addition to Sumar, EH Bildu and the BNG. Most of them are technical tweaks, although some have significant significance. However, the surprise is that both ERC and Junts have decided to act alone and register their own proposals without consensus with the PSOE. Both formations include the elimination of terrorism as a cause of exclusion in the amnesty.
After weeks in which the legal teams of PSOE, ERC and Junts have been trying to outline the law to analyze how to give greater legal coverage to the norm and avoid being exposed to a possible blow from the constitutional Court Or the european justice, the agreement has remained incomplete. The socialists have only agreed on nine amendments which, according to parliamentary group sources, are “of a technical nature.” Among the changes recorded is the exclusion of amnesty for crimes against the international community, such as genocide; the full delimitation of all acts amnestied to events that occurred during the independence process and clarifications on the bodies that may lift the precautionary measures.
“The proposed amnesty law is advancing in its processing with a majority and a solid legal architecture, so that it will fulfill its function of contribute to coexistence in Catalonia and in the whole of Spain, ensuring legal certainty”, the same sources emphasize. However, ERC and Junts have decided to continue fighting during the parliamentary process and have presented their amendments alone: four the Catalan Republicans and 12 the post-convergents.
Solo changes
One of the most controversial sections of the law for both groups is section ‘c’ of article two of the law, which establishes who is “excluded” from this amnesty. At this point it is established that “acts classified as crimes of possession, trafficking and storage of weapons, ammunition or explosives” and “acts classified as crimes of terrorism” punished by the Penal Code will not be amnestied, which could leave out the causes of the Democratic Tsunami and the CDR.
In the amendments, both parties advocate deleting this section. In the case of Junts the justification is that “it is evident that there is no conventual or jurisprudential obligation that requires excluding from an amnesty the acts classified as crimes of possession, trafficking and storage of weapons, ammunition or explosives punished in Chapter V of Title XXII of Book II of the Penal Code and the acts classified as terrorist crimes punishable in Chapter VII of Title XXII of Book II of the Penal Code There is no reason to maintain such an exclusion.“. ERC, on the other hand, argues it simply as a “technical improvement.”
Related news
The post-convergence, furthermore, demands that the perimeter of the amnesty is expanded, and begins to count as of November 1, 2011, and not January 1, 2012 as initially agreed. The justification is that they do so “to include all actions classified as crimes or determinants of administrative or contractual responsibility, linked in one way or another, to the consultation of November 9, 2014 and the referendum of October 1, 2017.”
In a statement, Junts has stated that its amendments seek to achieve “a broad, guaranteeing standard that is based on European and international law“, and in this sense they try to “shield the amnesty” with a double criterion: that it includes all cases of “persecution against the independence movement without exceptions” and that it is “applicable in its entirety”, as well as that it has immediate effects in your application.