The Government’s intention to reactivate a legislative reform to reduce the penalties for the crime of sedition threatens the culmination of its agreement with the Popular Party to renew the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ). But Pedro Sánchez, this Thursday from Pretoria (South Africa), has defended this reform of the Penal Code, for which he would have the endorsement of Esquerra Republicana and the absolute majority of the investiture bloc, while he has summoned Alberto Núñez Feijóo to Seal the judicial pact now: “The agreement is ready, it is prepared”, the President of the Government affirmed after the negotiations with the PP in recent weeks.
Sánchez has thus unlinked both issues, and in Moncloa they point out that, despite the fact that in the last few hours the PP has warned that a reduction in sedition would make it impossible to seal the agreement on the Judiciary, Feijóo himself would not have linked it in the speech that he has delivered at an act in Santander, where instead he has announced his intention to aggravate the crimes of sedition and rebellion if he becomes president of the Government.
The head of the Executive has thus wielded the legislative agenda with which he committed himself in his investiture speech, which is the one that opens the door to reducing the high penalties for the crime of sedition for which the leaders of the independence process in Catalunya, later pardoned by the Council of Ministers. A legislative and reformist agenda that Sánchez has warned has had “little support” from the PP in these almost three years of legislature. “One thing is the legislative agenda, which you can disagree with, you can vote no as many times as you want, in fact the PP has done it quite reliably throughout these three years of legislature, and another thing is the strict compliance with our constitutional obligations”, said the president, referring to a renewal of the CGPJ that has been blocked for almost four years.
Sánchez, thus, has called the PP again to an agreement to renew the governing body of the judges which, as he has stated, is already finalized. “We are facing a constitutional crisis without precedent in the constitutional history of our country, four years blocking the governing body of one of the main powers of all democracy, such as the judiciary, and the resignation of the former president of the Supreme Court and the CGPJ”, highlighted the head of the Executive in reference to the resignation of Carlos Lesmes.
“Nobody can fail the call to strictly comply with our constitutional obligations,” he insisted. “What I can say is that the agreement is ready, it is ready. And here it only remains to give an answer to the political will expressed by each of the parliamentary groups. Yes or we do not want to renew the CGPJ and the Supreme Court. The Government of Spain says yes in a resounding way, ”said Sánchez. “I repeat, we say yes in a resounding way”, he has summoned the PP.
The President of the Government has reiterated that “never have we been so close to reaching an agreement” with the PP to renew the CGPJ. “This is good news, and it shows the political will of both parties to be able to reach an agreement and find a balanced position for the PP as well”, Sánchez highlighted. And he has reiterated the Government’s “resounding yes” to said agreement. “I hope that we can unblock this situation, for the good of the institutions, of democracy and of our country”, he confided.
Sánchez has immediately highlighted that “the situation in Catalonia is much better than in October 2017”, when the illegal self-determination referendum took place. “Therefore, in the process of overcoming a political crisis that led us to an absolutely unprecedented situation in the forty years of democracy, it has to be resolved through political channels”, he pointed out. “It must be resolved through political channels”, he insisted, referring to the agenda of dejudicialization of the political conflict in Catalonia that the Government is debating with the Generalitat at the dialogue table. “That is what the Government of Spain is up to,” he stated.
“One of the main lessons that we have to draw from the situation that Spain experienced, so dramatic, of disagreement, of bankruptcy, in 2017, is the need to standardize some types of crime in our Penal Code to the European context to which we belong”, Sanchez has settled. For the first time, the Prime Minister has not added, as he had been doing until now, that he still does not see a parliamentary majority to endorse a reform of the crime of sedition.
