The Penal Code reform initiated with the intention of readjusting the provisions of the crime of sedition and avoiding the entry into jail of those more involved in the failed independence process of 2017 will end up dragging other modifications. Some in particular clearly interconnected, the modification of the crime of embezzlement of public funds and the creation of new criminal offenses to cover the flanks discovered by this initiative. Others, on the other hand, are heterogeneous and processed in the same package in a merely accidental way, such as the one that tries to put the members of the CGPJ willing to block the renewal of the Constitutional Court before criminal responsibilities, an offer for them to cease their attitude that it seems that they will not be able to reject, or introduce criminal measures in the field of labor legislation.
Although the reform of the crime of embezzlement has been raised as an ERC amendment open to being modulated ‘after the fact’ from the parliamentary groups of the government majority, it is evident that it is one of the fruits of the dialogue established between socialists and republicans both to continue the de-escalation and de-escalation of the political conflict in Catalonia and to guarantee stability in Madrid. Anything that contributes, as the pardons already did, to moving from the situation of political and social schism that put us on the edge of the abyss in 2017 to a situation like the current one deserves the support of anyone who prefers the normalization of democratic political life to feed the voltage and polarization. Although beyond the approval of the Budgets, these steps should also be reciprocated by ERC, for example accepting the need for a dialogue also in Catalonia with the non-independence partiesand raising delegitimizing red lines on them in their pact policy.
But that the proposals are well-intentioned, that they try to provide a proportionate response to a real problem and that in their formulation they arouse the necessary consensus to be approved is not enough. The technical formulation of the legal reform It must not leave loopholes that facilitate interpretations that stray from the objectives sought. As has happened with the application of the law of ‘yes is yes’. Or what could result from the reformulation of the crime of sedition, which could leave in a legal loophole acts that violate the democratic functioning of institutions without involving public disorder or reaching the category of violent uprising required by the crime of rebellion.
Distinguish acts of embezzlement that seek personal or third-party enrichment -such as the illegal financing of parties-, before which there can be no step back, from the use of this legal type as an aggravating circumstance to penalize actions of a political nature against those that already weigh other legal provisions or the mere use of funds for objectives other than those foreseen may be reasonable but also have unwanted effects. This is what usually happens when you try legislate according to a specific situation. And it shows that this danger is more than present, the fact that in parallel the persecution of the enrichment of unexplained origin of public offices has been presented as a compensatory measure, and that it has had to be insisted that socialist politicians such as those convicted in the case of the eres should not be benefited. Beyond personal gain, there are many other ways to divert public resources for purposes very different from the common good, and all of them must be pursued. years of speech fight against corruption they cannot be questioned by a reform that responds to a conjunctural need.