It looks like tomorrow’s plenary session of Congress will be rough to say the least, cannon fodder on social networks. The consideration and urgent processing of the proposed amnesty law, which the PSOE registered on November 13, will be debated. It will undoubtedly make it the most polarized mandate in recent years. The political right, with the PP and Vox, and the media have revolted. He did it even more when Pedro Sánchez admitted that it was not in his plans to go ahead with a rule like this. Parliamentary arithmetic, however, forced him to admit it if he wanted to repeat as president of the central government.
At the moment, it is the great achievement of Catalan independence. It will have the support of 178 deputies and the lawyers of the Lower House do not see any impediment. The absolute majority is 176. But at the same time it binds Esquerra and Junts to approve the general budgets of the State, at least those of the first section of the legislature. It even forces them to approve the omnibus law that the socialists are preparing. It should be borne in mind that the legislative process of the amnesty law is expected to end around the month of April. The calendar ties them together.
It is a quid pro quo with possible impact on Catalan budgets as well. ERC considers that Sánchez’s investiture pact commits the PSC to endorse them.
Everything points to the fact that the PP will present an appeal of unconstitutionality when the rule of criminal oblivion is approved, to even ask for its precautionary suspension. Until then, the popular people have as a weapon their absolute majority in the Senate, which can put sticks in the wheels of processing and delay the law for a few weeks.
If everything goes according to plan and is finally approved by the Congress of Deputies, the judges will be in charge of interpreting and applying the amnesty to all those prosecuted in the process from January 2012 to November of this year. At the moment, the law has raised dust in the higher courts: the conservative members of the Judiciary took a position against it when not even a draft of the rule had been made public.
There has also been opposition in the streets, with the PP and Vox calling demonstrations at weekends, and the ultra-right, mostly, protesting in front of the PSOE headquarters in Madrid.
The plenary on the amnesty has desserts. They will be served on Thursday. It is when Congress will debate the creation of investigative commissions that Sánchez also agreed to in exchange for re-election as President of the Executive. There are three of them: on the Catalonia operation and “the actions of the Ministry of the Interior during the PP governments in relation to alleged irregularities that link high-ranking officials and police commands with the existence of a parapolice plot” – requested by JxCat and the GNP–; on “the right to know the truth (…) of the Barcelona and Cambrils attacks” of August 17 and 18, 2017 – also claimed by these two parties -, and on espionage with Pegasus and Candiru in their sixties of people from the pro-independence environment – requested by Esquerra Republicana, EH Bildu and the mixed group.
In this sense, the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, will testify on Wednesday in the City of Justice, in Hospitalet de Llobregat, in front of the court of inquiry that has taken charge of the complaint he filed for this espionage.
