They had the coincident objective of shielding the application of the amnesty as much as possible, but the Junts per Catalunya and Esquerra groups, after a negotiation against the clock, presented the amendments to the amnesty law separately this Tuesday. The post-convergents have done it alone, with twelve proposals, while the republican group has registered four on its own and another nine with the help of PSOE, Sumar, EH Bildu and the sole deputy of the BNG, Néstor Rego.
One of the keys lies in whether or not terrorist crimes are included in criminal oblivion. It is maintained in the text that intentional acts that result in “death” and other conditions will not be amnestied, but both Junts and ERC advocate that this type be eliminated from the initial law and that it be eliminated from the original wording, in the chapter of exclusions, the reference to “the acts classified as terrorist crimes punishable in Chapter VII of Title XXII of Book II of the Penal Code, as long as a final sentence has been handed down and they have consisted of the commission of any of the conducts described in the Article 3 of Directive (EU) 2017/541 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of March 15, 2017.”
In the package of allegations of the Republicans and the Socialists with other forces, this point is left and simply included in the exclusions section “crimes against the International Community included in TITLE XXIV of Book II of the Penal Code”, as is the case of genocide. A reference that, in turn, also includes the group led in Madrid by Miriam Nogueras.
This aspect was one of the hot potatoes that the groups’ legal teams negotiated. It has special relevance due to the reservations that may arise from including terrorism in criminal oblivion at the European level and, above all, due to the implication it may have in cases such as Tsunami Democràtic, in which leaders such as Carles Puigdemont (JxCat) are accused. and Marta Rovira (ERC), or that of the members of the Committees for the Defense of the Republic (CDR) who are awaiting trial in the National Court for Operation Judas.
Despite the disagreement when it came to presenting amendments, Carles Puigdemont’s party assures that “it has agreed with the rest of the groups in favor of the law to continue working until its final approval to improve the text.” From Junts they point out that the intention of its twelve amendments, which they define as technical, is that the norm “includes all cases of persecution of the independence movement without exceptions and that it is applicable in its entirety” as well as that “it has immediate effects.” For their part, PSOE, ERC, Sumar, Bildu and BNG also point out that their allegations are “of a technical nature” and “have been agreed upon in recent days by jurists from the different formations, based on the general recognition that the initial text of the bill was of enormous legal solidity and completely in line with the Constitution.
The deadline to register proposals to modify the initial wording of the rule expired this Tuesday afternoon and the pro-independence organizations, advised by their legal teams, have negotiated until the last moment without closing an agreement. The interlocutor on the part of the socialists in this case has been the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes, Félix Bolaños.
Both the post-convergents and the Republicans had indicated in similar terms that their concern is that the judges will find cracks in the wording of the Amnesty law that delay its application or prevent it, especially after the statements of the General Council of the Judiciary.
The processing of the bill will accelerate this week in the Lower House with a first debate of partial amendments in the Justice commission this Thursday morning.
The truth is that the processing of the law has picked up pace in Congress and next week there will be another meeting of the Justice commission to debate the initiatives that have been rejected in the presentation, which will most certainly be the ones registered by the PP. and Vox in this process. The forecast is that the law will be approved in the plenary session of the Lower House at the end of January, although afterwards the criminal oblivion will remain fallow for two months in the Senate due to the reform that the popular ones validated, so that the final validation and Publication in the Official State Gazette (BOE) will arrive in spring, at the earliest.
