The expected analysis of the Venice Commission on the Amnesty law for those involved in the process will be neither the complete endorsement that the PSOE expected nor the condemnation that the PP wanted when it raised, from the Senate, a series of questions on the measure to this consultative body of the Council of Europe. In the text approved yesterday, the constitutional experts recognized the usefulness of the amnesty laws as instruments of political reconciliation, but at the same time expressed a series of doubts about the way it has been processed in the Spanish institutions.
The conclusions presented by the organization do not differ much from those already pointed out in a first draft of the law, and establish that “national unity and social and political reconciliation are legitimate objectives” for the amnesty laws. The experts also do not believe that there has been a violation of the separation of powers of the State, because it is the judges who will apply the general criteria of the law. They do not even go into assessing whether it is constitutional, because they believe that this corresponds to the Spanish institutions. “We have done our best to establish the general limits. The comparative study shows that amnesties are common in many countries”, explained Dutch judge Martin Kuijer, one of the speakers who analyzed the measure. “We have also said that normalization, as it says in Spain and in the title of the law, is a legitimate objective in itself, but we have made certain recommendations”, he continued.
Specifically, the Venice Commission is very clear when suggesting to the Spanish authorities that they try to achieve a larger qualified majority than the absolute majority of the Congress of Deputies required for an organic law. This is because, they argue, the proposed law has followed an emergency procedure, and they have observed that this method has increased a “deep and virulent division” in the political class, institutions, the judicial system, academics and society spanish For this reason, they would see it as desirable for the parliamentary majority to cooperate with the opposition to seek more consensus and believe that it would be positive if it could be included in a constitutional reform when the time has come.
“It is especially important, given the potential divisive effects of an amnesty, that there is an appropriate broad majority voting in favor of building bridges,” Kuijer warned. “To achieve this social and political reconciliation, in our opinion, a legitimate goal, there must be an inclusive process. And this means that an accelerated legislative process might not be the best for amnesty laws”, he insisted.
There are other explicit suggestions. For example, the Venice Commission believes that the Amnesty law covers a very broad period and offers too vague a coverage, which is why it believes that it should be delimited. For this reason, it asks for more concreteness on the temporal scope and coverage of the application of this political measure. “We do not necessarily say that it is not appropriate, but we have not seen justification for the dates proposed for this amnesty”, pointed out the Dutch jurist. In this regard, the experts demand that a closer causal relationship be guaranteed between the consultations held in Catalonia on November 9, 2014 and October 1, 2017 and the acts of embezzlement and corruption that would be amnestied. On terrorism, they believe that amnesties “are only compatible with international standards” if serious human rights violations are excluded.
Both the PSOE and the PP offered opposing readings of the report. “He unequivocally endorses the possibility of an amnesty in Spain for reconciliation in Catalonia,” defended the Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños. “It has been a success,” indicated the president of the Senate, the popular Pedro Rollán, who added that the opinion has included the amendments that the Upper House had presented on the law.
In the corridors of the Venetian museum where the meeting took place, some member of the Commission was surprised by the expectation: “There had never been a press in this place”.
