In an unprecedented institutional shock, the Senate has entered the collision course with Congress following the processing of the Amnesty law, the constitutionality of which a report by the lawyers of the Upper Chamber has called into question. This situation has caused the PP, with a majority in the Senate, to announce that it will urge the Lower House to withdraw the rule or, otherwise, it will raise a conflict between constitutional bodies to the Constitutional Court, which would be completely unprecedented.
The popular spokesperson in the Upper House, Alicia García, was in charge of making this warning when questioning the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Courts, Félix Bolaños, with whom she had a heated confrontation in plenary : “I want to announce that the popular group will propose that this Chamber, in defense of its constitutional powers, formally urge the Congress of Deputies to withdraw the Amnesty law because it is a covert reform of the Constitution”, said the senator for Ávila .
The report of the general secretary of the Senate, which explains the possibility that the PP will now explore in the face of an “invasion of attributions” between different institutions, speaks explicitly “about the unconstitutionality of the opinion of the plenary session of Congress” and, consequently, allows to the people to maintain that, apart from the content of the rule, the constitutionality of which will ultimately have to be sanctioned by the Constitutional Court when it is approved and prior to the presentation of an appeal, the procedures followed contravene what the Constitution establishes.
The PP understands that the processing of the Amnesty law was “fraudulent”, so that, if Congress does not accept its withdrawal within 30 days, this serious conflict will be settled by the Constitutional Court, to which, In this way, the Amnesty law will arrive in two ways: on the one hand, before it is approved and, on the other hand, in case the processing is not stopped, for which the PP could request precautionary measures, once it goes back to Congress and is ratified by the parliamentary majority that pushed it in the first instance and that supports the Government.
For the route to be completed, the Senate Bureau will first accept the request of the popular group and bring it to the plenary session, which will take place at the beginning of April and already in full pre-campaign for the Catalan elections on May 12. But, at the same time, processing will continue in the Senate itself, since the deadlines will not change: the Amnesty law must return to Congress by May 16 at the latest.
In this context, some popular sources advanced what their strategy will be: they will not present partial amendments to the law, but will raise a veto to the entirety of the rule, which will force Congress to vote again to lift it. In this way, the PP intends to adjust its time management based on political events, since it knows what conflicts the PSOE could have when it has to regain a parliamentary majority in favor of amnesty with its partners , especially ERC and Junts, in constant and growing struggle for hegemony in independence.
So, Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s party will decide to run out the terms or not according to their interests, since anything can happen between now and May, such as Carles Puigdemont returning to Catalonia determined to campaign on site and assuming the risk of being imprisoned. Faced with so many uncertainties, the PP wants to have the upper hand in the Senate.
Be that as it may, yesterday the insurmountable rift between the PP and the PSOE was once again evident in the Upper House, who offered very different versions of the debate that took place in the Bureau: for the socialists, the admission pending in the Senate of a law sent by Congress is automatic and they refused to vote on the “legal considerations” that the PP introduced in the text as a “summary” of the attached opinions of the services of the Chamber and the Venice Commission.
