Once the text of the agreement signed between PSOE and Junts per Catalunya for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez and the amnesty law itself It has been possible to put an end to the speculation, because how it is justified and who it benefits appears black on white in the 21-page text registered this Monday in the Congress of Deputies. The signatories claim since the agreement became known that they have been extremely careful because they have no doubt that one way or another it will end in the constitutional Court and they are counting on it to end up being endorsed.
These are the main keys that can be extracted from the text of the pact:
The text of the amnesty law recalls the promulgation of amnesty laws in other countries and in Spain, as well as rulings from the Court of Justice of the European Union of April 2021 and December of the same year that endorse them. They also mention the recognition that they say the European Court of Human Rights has made of its “validity and political opportunity”, with the limit of “serious violations of human rights.”
Having clarified the European support for the norm, the law justifies its enactment in “the debate” that arose from the ruling of the Constitutional Court on the Statute, in 2010, which represented “an institutional tension that gave rise to the intervention of justice and a tension social and political that caused the disaffection of a substantial part of Catalan society towards state institutions, which has not yet disappeared.
He adds that the Cortes resort to the constitutional mechanism of amnesty “when the most acute moments of the crisis have already been overcome and it is time to establish the foundations to guarantee coexistence for the future.” “The approval of this organic law is understood, therefore, as a necessary step to overcome the aforementioned tensions and eliminate some of the circumstances that cause” this “disaffection.”
He considers that “it could worsen in the coming years as judicial proceedings are carried out that affect not only the leaders of that process (who are the least), but also the multiple cases of citizens and even public employees.” who perform essential functions in the regional and local administration and whose prosecution and eventual conviction and disqualification would produce a serious disruption in the functioning of the services in the daily life of their neighbors and, ultimately, in social coexistence.”
“It is, therefore, to use whatever instruments are in the hands of the State to seek institutional normalization after a period of serious disruption, as well as continuing to promote dialogue, understanding and coexistence,” he affirms, in a process that he says is “also inspired by the interpretation offered by the Constitutional Court on the political obligations of public powers.” ” in its 2014 ruling, which declared that “the public powers and especially the territorial powers that make up our autonomous State are those who are called to resolve the problems that develop in this area through dialogue and cooperation.”
This organic law “amnesties acts that have been declared or were classified as crimes or as conduct determining administrative or accounting responsibilitylinked to the consultation held in Catalonia andl November 9, 2014 and the referendum of October 1, 2017 (both declared unconstitutional in the rulings of the Constitutional Court 31/2015, of February 25, and 114/2017, of October 17), that had been carried out between January 1, 2012, the year in which the events of the independence process began to take place, and November 13, 2023″.
It covers “not only the organization and celebration of the consultation and the referendum, but also other possible crimes that have a deep connection with them, such as, as an example, the preparatory acts, the different protest actions to allow their celebration or show opposition to the prosecution or conviction of those responsible, also including assistance, collaboration, advice or representation of any type, protection and security to those responsible, as well as all the acts object of this Law that prove a political, social and institutional tension that this norm aspires to resolve in accordance with the powers that the Constitution confers on the Cortes Generales.” .
After clarifying that being included in the amnesty does not imply the right to receive any amnesty nor will it give rise to the restitution of the amounts paid as a fine or sanction, including those imposed by 9-N by the Court of Accounts, since they are already firm, the law makes it clear that the sentences still to be served or the arrest warrants issued will be annulled, as former president Carles Puigdemont has pending.
What is excluded are “intentional acts against persons that would have resulted in death, abortion or injury to the fetus, the loss or uselessness of an organ or member, the loss or uselessness of a sense, impotence, sterility or a serious deformity”, as well as “acts classified as crimes of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment”, which are attributed to some police officers for the 1-O charges. In this way, we will have to see how the procedure followed by the actions of Tsunami Democrátic and the latest decision by Judge Manuel García-Castellón to link the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and charge the general secretary of ERC, Marta Rovira, and 10 other people. If the prosecution’s arguments in its appeal are successful, he would be included in the case.
Those convicted by the Supreme Court in the October 2019 ruling and those fleeing from Spanish justice for that reason will have their criminal records erased and those prosecuted for terrorism and possession and manufacture of explosive substances may be included in the case open to the alleged cell Equipment of Reply CDR tactics, since they do not have concrete actions against people.
The law also refers to all the procedures followed in the Catalan Superior Court of Justice against those who were members of the Parliament Board under the presidency of Carme Forcadell or against those who were authorized, such as Meritxell Serret, convicted of serious disobedience. Also against officials and intermediate positions of the Generalitat, such as the ERC deputy and former secretary general of Vice President and Economy of the Generalitat, Josep Maria Jové, and the former secretary of Hisenda and now president of the Port of BarcelonaLluís Salvadófor which the prosecution requested 7 and 6 years in prison.
Also the citizens who were involved in any procedure and the 35 prosecuted by the Court of Accounts for their accounting responsibility in the 1-O and the foreign action. The amnesty modifies the regulatory norm of the supervisory body to ensure the archiving of its actions with or without the trial scheduled for this Friday already held.
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The amnesty does not include the term ‘lawfare’ (judicial persecution against political opponents), which was given a natural letter by the agreement signed between PSOE and Junts, and which raised protests from the entire judicial world of any sensitivity due to the paragraph that included (“the conclusions of the investigation commissions that will be established in the next legislature will be taken into account in the application of the amnesty law to the extent that situations may arise within the concept of ‘lawfare’ or judicialization of politics, with the consequences that, where appropriate,may give rise to liability actions or legislative modifications”). Several parliamentary commissions are planned for the next legislature: the Pegasus case, the State sewers and the 17-A attacks.
Puigdemont himself had described the Tsunami Democràtic case as ‘lawfare’ and in one of his writings in the National Court the procedure followed against his lawyer was mentioned as such, Gonzalo Boye, for money laundering allegedly coming from drug trafficking. Also the former president of the Parliament Laura Borràs, sentenced to four and a half years in prison for fragmenting contracts to benefit a friend, claimed to be a victim of ‘lawfare’.