The draft of the Amnesty law that, at the request of the Spanish Senate, was prepared by the Venice Commission, has ended up being leaked to the press. The Venice Commission is an advisory body of the Council of Europe, specialized in constitutional issues. I don’t know very well what the Popular Party expected by resorting to this commission, but it seems clear that it has backfired. The draft establishes that the purposes sought with the amnesty are legitimate; that the amnesty is not incompatible with the rule of law or with the division of powers, and that numerous countries, whether their Constitution contemplates it or not, have carried out amnesties.
Given this, the commission proposes some technical improvements to the law, criticizes the emergency procedures that have been followed, suggests that in the future a constitutional amendment be approved to regulate amnesties and draws attention to the most paradoxical element of the entire process. , namely, that the amnesty is an instrument to normalize the political situation in Catalonia but, at the same time, produces a strong division in Spanish society, as if solving one problem created another of equivalent magnitude. In this sense, the report contains this statement, with which it is difficult to disagree: “The commission encourages all Spanish authorities to take the time necessary to engage in meaningful dialogue in a spirit of loyal cooperation between the institutions of the State, as well as between the majority and the opposition, in order to achieve social and political reconciliation.”
Who wouldn’t sign such a recommendation? I wish all political forces had the necessary vision to address this issue not as a partisan dispute and an element of erosion of the Government, but as a great agreement in the inclusive and integrative spirit of our transition to democracy.
Now, if said dialogue is impossible because the right-wing opposition affirms that the amnesty represents the end of democracy and the rule of law, and if there is no spirit of cooperation, then the PP is willing to use the worst filibuster to prevent the approval of the law, and in addition the Supreme Court is going to do everything in its power to ensure that the law is not executed once approved, what should be done? Should the Government renounce the amnesty because there is no great consensus on the matter? With a less exalted right, an approach could be attempted, but is it realistic to think that, in the current political circumstances, it is possible to invite the PP to join a great pact around amnesty?
Let us agree that the conditions for a broad agreement do not exist. It is a fact for everyone to see. Does it follow that the governing party, although it has the votes to advance the law in Congress, does not have the necessary democratic legitimacy to approve a measure of this nature? Is the social division around the amnesty a sufficient reason to give up dealing with the issue?
Ideally, there is no doubt that consensus would be desirable. However, I insist, if consensus is not feasible in a case like this, is there no other option than to put the project in a drawer and wait for better times? Those who demand a transversal consensus on this matter as an indispensable condition are, in practice, giving veto power to the minority and obstructionist position of the Popular Party and Vox.
For a transversal agreement to occur, the two major political parties must want to reach it. I think it is evident that the right does not want any agreement on the Catalan question at all. The agreement would make sense if the right were open to approving the law in exchange for toughening its conditions, but the problem is that the very idea of ??amnesty, like that of pardons before, is unacceptable to them.
In a case like this, progress must prevail over consensus. Not only because otherwise we are destined to have an unreformable country, but, above all, because history teaches us that many of the great reforms that have been carried out in Spain since Franco’s death have been carried out by the left alone and , with the passage of time, the right has been assuming them.
The most pertinent example is that of pardons. In its day the PP shouted to the sky, but during the Galician campaign, in the strange meeting between Alberto Núñez Feijóo and a group of invited journalists, the president of the Popular Party showed himself willing to consider a pardon for the independence leaders once once they have been judged. Do not be surprised that if the negotiations on the territorial framework and plurinationality come to fruition, the PP will once again oppose and argue that the amnesty was enough to resolve the Catalan question.
Of course, it is not just the example of pardons. Many of the great advances have been made without consensus, but they have ended up being irreversible because the right has accepted them after the fact: the abortion laws, the gay marriage law, the reform of the labor market, the dependency law…
Beyond these important reforms, remember that only half of the Alianza Popular parliamentary group voted in favor of the Constitution in 1978. Today, however, the PP brandishes the Constitution against any new advance. This appropriation of the Constitution is perhaps the definitive proof that the PP ends up entering into the consensus of progress, although it always does so late and lags behind history.