After the amendments agreed this Tuesday in the Justice Commission, by the PSOE, Junts and Esquerra, among other groups, the Government has now definitively closed the Amnesty law for those prosecuted by the process. And he also sees the approval of this legislative initiative, key for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez and for the start of the legislature, guaranteed next week in the plenary session of the Congress of Deputies. “By an absolute majority of 178 seats,” they emphasize in the Moncloa.
Although some partial amendments registered by Junts and ERC will still be alive during the debate and vote in the plenary session of Congress on January 30, socialist sources warn that they will decline as they do not have a sufficient majority for them to prosper. The PSOE is thus only willing to vote in favor in the plenary session of the amendments already agreed upon, together with JxCat and Esquerra, Sumar and Podemos, the PNV and EH Bildu.
“We have agreed with the parliamentary groups that support the processing of the Amnesty law on two technical amendments that improve a law that was already solid in itself, technically, completely in accordance with the Constitution and the law of the European Union,” highlighted the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes, Félix Bolaños, this Tuesday at the end of the meeting of the Council of Ministers.
The minister has assured that, with these new amendments, “terrorism is maintained as a crime exempt from the application of the Amnesty law whenever it involves a serious violation of human rights, as stated in the European directive and the European Convention on human rights and fundamental freedoms”. That is to say, Bolaños stressed, “we said that terrorism was outside the Amnesty law and it remains outside when it involves serious violations of human rights.”
Socialist sources recall that Junts and ERC registered amendments last week that claimed to include all terrorist crimes in the Amnesty law, which in their opinion would have opened “a big loophole” in the law. With the amendments agreed today, the Government defends that legal certainty is fully guaranteed.
After the expected approval of the Amnesty law next week in the plenary session of Congress, the law will begin its processing in the Senate, where the absolute majority of the Popular Party wants to delay it for two months. Despite this delay, the Government is confident that the amnesty will be definitively approved in approximately the first week of April. And, once published in the Official State Gazette (BOE), it will be in force and its application will be immediate.