“It’s not going in the right direction.” With these six words yesterday, Yolanda Díaz established Sumar’s official position on the option put on the table by Pedro Sánchez on Monday to reform the Criminal Procedure Law (LECrim) to try to attract Junts to a consensual departure from the convoluted negotiation of the Amnesty law.
The path opened by the President of the Central Government is aimed at cutting down the terms of judicial instruction – currently they are twelve months, but can be extended without limit every six – so that, among others, the judge of the National Court Manuel García- Castellón, which is investigating Carles Puigdemont for terrorism, should bring the matter to trial without further delay. But the consequences of the LECrim reform make the second vice-president doubt its suitability, to the point of warning the PSOE that the path taken “is not the right one”.
“Obviously, judges in our country must have the right to a process with guarantees, with full solvency, but there are also processes that are very complex, that need rhythms, means and investigations that require a certain prudence”, he argue in the corridors of Congress.
The leader of Sumar, however, added the need to address the issue in person with Sánchez. Something that, at least until yesterday afternoon, had not happened due, in part, to the intense international agenda – Mexico and Vatican City – and national – electoral campaign in Galicia – undertaken by Díaz in recent days.
In this way, the second vice president completed a remarkable turn on the position of his formation after the national spokesman and Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, on Monday welcomed the option launched by Sánchez and that, just 24 hours later, both the speaker in Congress, Íñigo Errejón, and the deputy speaker and leader of En Comú Podem, Aina Vidal, showed mild discrepancies over the possible “imbalance” that the reform of the law could cause in terms of maintaining the guarantees procedural
Sánchez left Congress without going to assess the warning of his vice-president and it was the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, who did it, appealing to the “responsibility” of some others: “We hope that after the necessary talks an agreement will be reached that I believe is to the benefit of all”, he pointed out from the Senate.
