Mariano Rajoy delegated the resolution of the Catalan conflict to the passage of time and to the judges and it is still pending a decade later with Pedro Sánchez in the Moncloa, with pardons and the Amnesty law. The National Court and the Supreme Court are today the spearhead against criminal oblivion, while the PP takes a break to delve into the wound that the Koldo case has inflicted on the PSOE. The amnesty is not in the top 10 of the problems of Spaniards, but “the bad behavior of politicians” is, according to the CIS. The PSOE has raised the bar of exemplarity, but the PP shakes the pillars so that José Luis Ábalos falls on Sánchez.
The Koldo tsunami has swept away the PSOE’s strategy of containing damage around the amnesty. The dependence on Junts votes had become a consequence and the negotiation was shielded from external vicissitudes. Also from judicial pressure? Without the will to reach an agreement, the dialogue would have broken down weeks ago, they maintain. Convinced of the pact and with the new endorsement of the Venice Commission, it remains to be seen who will give in. Another resignation of the PSOE weakens it at the worst moment and angers ERC. On the other hand, internal pressure on Carles Puigdemont increases.
Sánchez’s investiture pact included wording of an amnesty law that the reactivation of the Tsunami case distorted. Three modifications later with parallel judicial actions and pending the last negotiation, the decision of the Supreme Court arrives and the attribution to Puigdemont of a possible crime of terrorism.
The court establishes itself as the “Supreme government,” denounce the independence supporters. Censorship politicians and media. Where Sánchez invokes “common sense” to know “what is terrorism and what is not,” the Supreme Court replies that his thesis is “incompatible” with the Penal Code. There are terrorists beyond ETA or the Jihad, the magistrates maintain. And they point to Puigdemont, “his absolute leadership, intellectual authorship and assumption of the reins” of the 2019 riots.
The Criminal Court is lengthy in its references to rulings on kale borroka; and remember that it was Dolores Delgado, as State Attorney General, who spoke of the “violent Catalan independence movement” – from the CDR to Tsunami. The independence movement maintains with astonishment that the Supreme Court sees the reaction in the streets to its ruling as more serious than the 1-O itself. The constitutional challenge of the referendum is overcome by the “subversion” and “serious destabilization of democratic institutions” of the protests.
At Junts they believe that the Supreme Court’s order reaffirms its position against the PSOE: eliminate the exclusion of the crime of terrorism. “All the amnesty laws in history have stopped these things,” they maintain. The new element on the table is another report from the Venice Commission of February 23, which indicates that only Brazil and Kyrgyzstan exclude this crime from the laws of forgetting. ERC, which follows the negotiation in the background, also handles this documentation. “There are no restrictions on amnesty in EU states.”
The PSOE continues to publicly cling to the exclusion of the crime of terrorism from the amnesty, but the Supreme Court, assuming “without a doubt” García-Castellón’s thesis, implies a risk for Puigdemont. Junts sees in the Supreme Court’s decision a preventive attempt to politically disqualify Puigdemont, even preventing his candidacy in the European elections. Speculation is skyrocketing. A summons as an investigator, another request to lift immunity from the European Parliament, an express prosecution, the reactivation of a search and arrest warrant now for terrorism…
The PSOE considers it essential that terrorism be excluded from the amnesty to pass the filter of the Constitutional Court and European justice. In Junts they reply that what is “amazing” in Europe is an accusation of terrorism due to demonstrations against a sentence. The clock is ticking. Just a week ago, Sánchez took it for granted that there would be an Amnesty law and boasted of having “all the time in the world.” Ábalos was still from the PSOE and Koldo García was shellfish…
