There seems to be broad agreement among legal experts that Spain’s recent Amnesty Law, approved by the Justice Commission of the Congress without meeting basic legal requirements, is, in fact, unconstitutional, and does not meet European Union standards.
In particular, it violates the principle of equality before the law and the separation of powers.
To push the law through, the government relied on the vaguely worded opinion of the “Comisión de Venecia” saying that such a Law could be legal, while of course ignoring one of its most important requisites: the need for a broad social consensus (as there was in the case of the 1977 Amnesty Law pertaining to Spain’s political transition).
As it happens, there is broad consensus on this issue, even among Socialist party voters, but it is against the amnesty.
The Law amnesties crimes and misdemeanors committed by the entire pro-independence movement since November 1, 2011. It even pardons the children of former Catalan President Pujol for corruption.
This is hard to stomach, even in a society that has accepted parliamentary over-representation of certain regions and their separatist parties within these, thorough administrative decentralization, and the obviating of Catalonia’s historic debt to the rest of Spain.
The amnesty will cover everything from the violence of “Tsunami Democrático” to the apparent link between Catalan separatism and Moscow. Crucially, it will likewise pardon embezzlement of public funds, as long as it was done to support Catalonia breaking away from Spain or organizing referendums for independence.
The Law foresees the lifting of relevant search and arrest warrants and prison sentences within a maximum period of 2 months.
Spain’s “preliminary ruling” is now before the European Court of Justice, raising the question of the primacy of EU law.
The leader of the opposition People’s Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, wants the European Union to intervene. He suggests having an extraordinary dialogue in which the position of Spain’s politicians would be put on the record in order to highlight the legal excesses of the Socialist-led government.
Proposing measures to stop the judiciary from being politicized in the future has now become a major plank of the PP’s electoral message.
For his part, Feijóo considers the Amnesty Law unconstitutional and has stated that he will repeal it if he becomes prime minister (although he hopes the European Courts will do that job for him).
The situation is ambiguous, in any case, because Feijóo has also suggested that it may not be possible to charge the pardoned criminals afterwards, even if the original amnesty is repealed, which leaves the issue of repeal somewhat moot.
It would not apply going forward or serve as legal precedent, in other words, but would conceivably, leave the damage done, done.
