The delegation of the Venice Commission invited by the Senate, where the PP has an absolute majority, to issue a report on the amnesty law, began a working visit in Madrid this Thursday with a meeting with the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes, Félix Bolaños, and will later meet with members of the Congress and the Senate, as well as with the judicial associations and the president of the CGPJ.
According to ministry sources, after the meeting, Bolaños thanked the visit and offered the members of the delegation all the collaboration they need to carry out their work. For the minister this is “a great opportunity to explain the importance of the Amnesty law to open a new stage of understanding and its full compliance with the Constitution and EU Law.” The Government continues to work in favor of coexistence and harmony in Catalonia, the sources insist.
The members of this advisory body of the Council of Europe are in charge, at the initiative of the Senate Board, of carrying out an examination on respect for the separation of powers of the initiative promoted by the PSOE and which is being processed in Congress.
After meeting with Bolaños, the members of the delegation plan to meet with deputies from various groups of Congress, initially from the Justice commission, although on the PP’s side there will be Cuca Gamarra as general secretary, Esteban González Pons as deputy secretary of Institutional policy , María Jesús Moro, spokesperson for Justice, Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo as vice spokesperson for the Group and Miguel Tellado as spokesperson for the PP group.
In the afternoon, the agenda continues with a meeting with the four judicial associations and the president of the General Council of the Judiciary, Vicente Guilarte, at the headquarters of the governing body of the judges at 4:00 p.m.
An hour later, the president of the Senate, Pedro Rollán, will receive the representatives of the Commission, who will later meet alone in successive half-hour meetings with senators from each group, first from the PP and the last from the Mixed.
On Friday, the delegation of the Venice Commission, the legal advisory body of the Council of Europe, will hold a meeting with the president of the Constitutional Court, Cándido Conde Pumpido, as sources from this institution have informed EFE.
The members of the Venice Commission will also meet during their several-day visit with government representatives and legal experts, in meetings that will take place at the Center for Political and Constitutional Studies, although the schedule is not yet known.
The Venice Commission will issue a report on the proposed amnesty law that is in the legislative process, which will be ready for its plenary session in mid-March. The opinion of the Venice Commission was requested in December by the Senate Board, in which the PP has a majority.
The spokesperson for the Senate Board, Javier Maroto, has explained that this report will not focus on the constitutionality or not of the amnesty law, as it is the subject of other legal reports, such as requests to lawyers, to the General Council of Power Judicial or Fiscal Council, but the Venice Commission will pay special attention to respect for the separation of powers.
For this reason, as Maroto added, it is pertinent that the Commission not only study the text of the bill and the amendments proposed by Junts and other groups, but also the modifications provided for in the Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Law, as well as claims about lawfare.
Along with the secretary, Pierre Garrone, the director of the Commission, Simona Granata-Menghini, will go to Madrid; the vice president for Italy, Marta Cartabia; the vice president of the Netherlands, Martin Kuijer; the Swiss representative Regina Kiener; the Bulgarian jurist Philip Dimitrov, and the Mexican José-Luis Vargas Valdez.
