The opinion of the law of democratic memory promoted by the Government has surpassed this Monday afternoon the vote in the Constitutional Commission of Congress thanks to the yes of EH Bildu, PNV and PDeCAT added to that of the PSOE and United We Can. ERC and JxCat abstained and will continue negotiating the text until the next vote in the plenary session of the Lower House, since they see it as “insufficient”. Both PP and Vox and Cs have voted against him and have reproached the PSOE for carrying out the law with “the political heirs of the ETA murderers.”
The rule declares the illegality of the Franco regime and the nullity of the resolutions of its courts, but does not modify the Amnesty Law of 1977, one of the demands of the independence parties that claimed to touch it to investigate and judge the crimes of Francoism in Spain.
Another unheeded claim is that the ownership of the offices of the National Police station on Vía Laietana in Barcelona be returned to the Generalitat to museumize the building and turn it into a memory center. However, as a result of the Spanish Government’s agreements with EH Bildu and the PDeCAT, the text has incorporated some claimed elements.
The aberzales voted in favor of the norm after agreeing, among others, to include explicitly declaring the illegality and illegitimacy of the Francoist courts as well as the nullity of all their resolutions and sentences. The pact also implies extending the time limit for the application of the law until the end of 1983 and the creation of an independent commission to help clarify human rights violations during the Franco dictatorship.
As regards the PDeCAT, some of the improvements that have been included in the text are the incorporation of the Catalan self-government institutions as an object of recognition and reparation and the consideration of victims of the Catalan, Basque and Galician languages ??and cultures. The PDeCAT deputy Sergi Miquel has remarked that the amendments that have been incorporated make the law “more ambitious and courageous” and that it will be “the basis for going further in a few years”.
The Republican deputy Carolina Telechea has defended that ERC cannot vote in favor because the norm “does not dare” to “do true justice and reparation”. Telechea has lamented that the 1977 Amnesty Law is not touched “perpetuating a model of impunity” nor is the responsibility of the state recognized “which should be transferred to reality with compensation for causes annulled by law and the return of all stolen property by fascism to their rightful owners”. “They want to approve a text that is symbolically ambitious and very weak in the effective part,” she said.
The deputy Joan Pagès also criticized that the rule is “insufficient”. “What there are are very few acts of reparation and too much rhetoric and symbolism,” said Pagès, who has asked that the status of victim be recognized in the Catalan nation and the change of use of the Via Laietana police station.
The PSOE deputy Indalecio Gutiérrez has invited ERC, Junts and BNG to support the law and has recognized “the important contribution” that the Republicans have made to the law. As for EH Bildu, which has facilitated the unblocking of the vote on the norm, deputy Bel Pozueta has warned that the party will continue to demand legislative measures in parallel to the law to guarantee that the courts can prosecute “those responsible for terror Francoist”.
The PP deputy Jaime Mateu Istúriz, a relative of ETA victims, has indicated that the new law is only a “smoke bomb” to try to “cover up” what he considers to be the terrible management of the Government in the face of the economic crisis. And he regrets that, in order to carry out the new law, Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE breaks with the example of the socialists of the transition and relies on the vote of Bildu, “the political heirs of the ETA murderers”.
Francisco José Contreras, from Vox, has accused the socialists of having turned Bildu into a “judge of memory” just as 25 years have passed since serious ETA attacks such as the long kidnapping of José Ortega Lara and the murder of Miguel Angel Blanco .
From Ciudadanos, Guillermo Díaz has contrasted the different treatment given to the victims of Francoism with that of ETA, to the point that “the former members of the gang are now government interlocutors to agree on the memory of Spain.” “The PSOE has handed over everything, even the most sacred, to a party led by terrorists,” he stated.
United We Can has rejected these arguments, noting that the ETA murders have been investigated, while those of the Franco regime went unpunished. “Don’t look for excuses,” said deputy Martina Velarde, who has also lamented the attitude of the PP and Vox because in her opinion they have been portrayed as “sociological heirs” of the dictatorship.
