December 2023: Spanish society is totally divided over the amnesty bill negotiated between the government coalition and the sovereigntist forces that allowed the investiture. In the first study by the Center for Sociological Research (CIS) that questions the interviewees about their political barometer on the subject, 44.7% of those interviewed do not consider the demonstrations on Ferraz Street in Madrid against forgiveness against 40.8% see them as justified. However, only 3.4% consider the Amnesty law as one of the three main problems facing the country and 72.4% admit that they have not read the provisional text.
This was the first time that the CIS asked about a measure of grace of this magnitude in almost half a century, the time that has passed between the pardons and the Amnesty law that sealed the transition and the proposal that marks the political confrontation today . So, although public concern about forgiveness was greater and the confrontation less, the rejection of the Spaniards to forgive crimes of terrorism and blood did not end up influencing the unconditional political pardon that Congress ended up approving by a large majority. .
The issue was already on the table before Juan Carlos I, as head of state, named Adolfo Suárez president of the Government. In fact, it was under the presidency of Carlos Arias Navarro when the CIS launched its first survey on a possible amnesty that would favor national reconciliation.
This first survey, on a universe of 1,250 citizens of Madrid (600), Barcelona (450) and Seville (200), of diverse gender, training and social background, was carried out on January 2 and 3, 1976, when he had barely passed a month after the death of Francisco Franco and the call for elections to the Constituent Cortes had not yet been proposed.
The measure seemed fine to 33.3% of Madrid residents, the most favorable, and 29.3% of Barcelona residents, the most reluctant. And although 66.9% of Barcelona residents, 62.0% of Sevillians and 59.5% of Madrid residents considered that the measure “would contribute to pacifying spirits and promoting national reconciliation”, they all mostly agreed that exclude blood crimes and terrorism from the measure: 59.5% of those surveyed in Madrid, 66.9% of those surveyed in Barcelona and 62.0% of those surveyed in Seville. However, confidence that the measure would be applied throughout 1976 barely exceeded 18%.
The events of Montejurra in May of that year and the closed-mindedness of Arias Navarro in the face of the dismantling of the structures of the dictatorship promoted by the King led to the resignation of the President of the Government and his replacement by Adolfo Suárez at the beginning of July. And one of the first measures of the new president was none other than the approval of a first amnesty decree that same month of July that he would extend in March 1977.
Without referring to the current criminal type of terrorism, in the first case it was a partial amnesty that pardoned crimes of political intention and opinion that had not endangered or injured the life or integrity of people. In its expansion, it was considered “the only and strict elimination of the ‘endangered’ clause”, de facto recognizing forgiveness for terrorist actions in which no fatalities had occurred.
Just after the first decree, the CIS launched its second demographic study on the amnesty, this time expanding the universe to a significant city: Bilbao, which joined Madrid, Barcelona and Seville, maintaining the proportionality established in the first survey on a total of 1,438 interviewed.
That first partial amnesty satisfied 51% of those surveyed (57% of those in Madrid, 45% of those in Barcelona, ??52% of those in Seville and 47% of those in Bilbao). Of the minority of dissatisfied people, 77% considered that it was “not very broad”, a percentage that rose to 83% among those from Bilbao and 80% among those from Barcelona. The questions, in this case, did not explicitly refer to terrorism or blood crimes. Already with the decree in force, only 29% considered that forgiveness “would help a lot” to reconciliation.
The third survey corresponds to September 17, 1977, with the extension of the amnesty decreed by Adolfo Suárez in force and after the election of the Constituent Cortes that June. In response to the demands of the left-wing and nationalist forces, the winning Democratic Center Union agreed to approve a consensus Amnesty law that went beyond the current legal framework and the CIS wanted to ask the Spanish people about it.
The study, this time on a universe of 1,078 people, determined that only 33% of those surveyed considered that the grace measure should still be extended further (48% in the Basque Country, not just Bilbao). And making explicit reference to bloody crimes, 44% favored pardon only being applied to those in which neither injuries nor deaths had occurred, a percentage that did not exceed 20% in the Basque Country, while a 31% believed that no distinction should be made between crimes with or without blood (56% among Basque respondents). A resounding 61% put the renunciation of violence for political purposes as a condition of forgiveness, which dropped to 45% in the interviews in the Basque Country.
The Amnesty law that came out of the Cortes, however, did forgive crimes of blood and terrorism thanks to a wording that avoided any explicit reference: “All acts of political intention are amnestied, whatever their result, classified as crimes. and offenses committed prior to December 15, 1976.”