“It is the last opportunity.” Says José Ramón Chirivella, president of the Association of Valencian Jurists. He refers to the demand that the PP and PSOE accept to incorporate Valencian civil law into the Constitution, taking advantage of the modification of article 49 to annul the term of the Magna Carta. Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo agreed on it on December 22 with the aim of ending an unfair definition for people with disabilities.
The processing of this modification of the article of the Constitution will begin shortly in Congress. Although we want to speed up the process by a single reading, there will be the possibility of proposing amendments. This is what Compromís will do with the support of Sumar; an additional amendment that seeks, precisely, to incorporate Valencian civil law. Juristes Valencians will explain the details today with the presence of José Ramón Chirivella, the former minister and professor Vicent Soler and the former president of the Constitutional Court Pascual Sala.
Chirivella is optimistic but warns that “this is going to be quick, either we get it now or we won’t have another chance.” He remembers that during the last electoral campaign, both the PP and the PSPV were in favor of incorporating Valencian law into the Magna Carta. President Carlos Mazón and former president Ximo Puig also recently verbalized and defended it. “Even Feijóo showed his support in an interview with a Valencian media,” recalls Soriano, who does not observe any other scenario “because it would mean a failure of Valencian politics and would leave us, once again, in a situation of discrimination with respect to the autonomies that “They do have their civil rights recognized.” “It would be prolonging a terrible injustice,” he adds.
Galicia, the Basque Country, Navarra, Aragon, Catalonia and the Balearic Islands have their own civil law legislation. Valencian civil law was recovered in the reform of the Valencian Statute of 2006, promoted by the Government of Francisco Camps (PP) – with the support of the PSOE -, but it was lost after the executive of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (PSOE) appealed before the TC (a resource that Mariano Rajoy later maintained as president). On April 28, 2016, the Constitutional Court declared the unconstitutionality of the Valencian law on the Valencian Matrimonial Economic Regime. Later the same thing would happen with the shared custody law and the Formalized De facto Unions law.
The Valencian Community has therefore been without its own civil law for seven years, despite having had one of the oldest in the State: the Valencians had their own jurisdictions from the 13th century, with Jaume I, until their abolition with the New Plant Decrees that promulgated by the first Bourbon in Spain, Philip V, in 1707. It was the great punishment they received after the defeat in the battle of Almansa and that still today, 314 years later, marks their laws.
Civil law is what allows autonomous communities to legislate everyday aspects such as the separation of property in a marriage or shared custody of children in the event of separation. All those that had their own jurisdictions when the Constitution came into force enjoy that jurisdiction, except the Valencians.
Now, Juristes Valencians observes the reform of the Constitution as the opportune moment for all political promises to serve to do justice with Valencian civil law.