The plenary of Constitutional Court has given its final approval to imaginative formulas with which the deputies, most of them pro-independence, have gone swearing or promising the Constitution to obtain his seat in the Congress of Deputies, almost all of them with the tag “by legal imperative”. He has done so by resolving the appeal filed by eight PP deputies against the formulas used in May 2019 by the president of Esquerra Republicana (ERC), oriol junquerasand three other colleagues on the bench who also ended up convicted in the ‘procés’ sentence, although there were a total of 29 deputies who used different formulas.
The Constitutional Court has declared, by six votes to four, that the acceptance of the formulas for compliance with the Constitution added to the expression yes I swear or yes I promise do not limit the right of political representation of the rest of the deputies, contrary to what was argued by the appellants, who maintained that the decision of the Presidency of Congress to validate these compliance formulas “was contrary to the nature of their political representation, since the very conformation of Congress was affected and implied a treatment inequality between representatives, since those who had complied with it in accordance with the regulatory requirements had had to put up with other deputies using formulas other than those legally provided”. The magistrate did not participate in the deliberation Juan Carlos Field because he abstained from hearing this matter, and the magistrates have announced a particular opinion Ricardo Enríquez, Enrique Arnaldo, César Tolosa and Concepción Espejel.
Jurisprudence
The sentence makes an analysis of the previous constitutional jurisprudence on the right invoked and highlights that the article of the Constitution does not consecrate a right to respect all the prescriptions of the parliamentary regulations, because it only prevents those violations of the parliamentary norms that affect the core of the rights and powers of political representatives such as, mainly, those that are directly related to the exercise of legislative powers and control of government action.
The sentence concludes that it is not proven that the decision of the president of Congress had an impact, curtailing them, on the rights and powers that make up the status of the position of congressional deputy of which the plaintiffs are holders. He claims that there has been no unequal treatment between deputiessince all the compliance formulas were validated and the claim of the plaintiffs that a different treatment should have been given to the specific 29 deputies who used added compliance formulas contains a request that a different treatment be given between cases that they understand as unequal, which is not covered by the principle of equality.
The plenary ruled out that the contested decision, which has allowed access to the full status of deputies for those who used added compliance formulas under the same conditions as the amparo applicants, does not affect the right of the latter to also fully exercise their parliamentary functions in accordance with legal provisions. From this it follows that there has not been the alleged violation of art. 23.2 CE and that the Court should not proceed to analyze whether there was a possible contravention of parliamentary rules by validating these formulas of compliance with the Constitution.
the republican compromise
The person in charge of inaugurating the turn of the different oaths was Junqueras, who promised the Constitution “from the republican commitment, as a political prisoner and by legal imperative”. Then they followed him Jordi Sànchez, Josep Rull and Jordi Turull. The first used the formula: “From the commitment to dialogue and loyalty to the mandate of 1-O, as a political prisoner, I promise it.” “As a political prisoner and with loyalty to the democratic mandate and to the people of Catalonia, by legal imperative, I promise it”, were the words chosen by Josep Rull and Jordi Turull. The four were suspended from duty four days later after being prosecuted for the crime of rebellion, although they were later convicted of sedition.
Junqueras: From the Republican commitment, as a political prisoner and by legal imperative, I do promise. pic.twitter.com/qMqb1xhDyK
— Oriol Junqueras 🎗️ (@junqueras) May 21, 2019
two resources
So much the PP as Citizens appealed the decision of the Table of Congress to accept these formulas and now the Constitutional, by resolving the first of them, has given them natural status. Although the pronouncement refers to the shortest legislature in Spanish history, due to the repetition of the elections, after Pedro Sánchez was unable to form a government, the criteria now set by the Constitution will be extended to all the others, in which Unusual words may have been used, and future ones.
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This supposes the definitive endorsement of the pattern of the different formulas used in different legislatures to swear or promise the Constitutional, an essential procedure to take possession of the seat obtained at the polls. In fact, the president of Congress, Meritxell Batet, responded to a letter from the PP in which they asked him to prohibit this type of practice saying that he would not do it, because his obligation was to comply with the Regulations of the Chamber.
Among the formulas that have been heard in Congress, depending on the parliamentary group to which the deputy belonged, are: “For democracy and social rights” It was the one that parliamentarians from United We Can opted for; “for Spain”the president of Vox, Santiago Abascal, or the “by legal imperative” of the nationalists of the PNV or the independentistas of Bildu, Esquerra Republicana (ERC) or Junts.