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In Spain on Tuesday was rejected the awaited amnesty law for Catalan independence activists and for the people involved in the October 2017 referendum. The surprise law did not pass Congress, the lower house of parliament: in addition to the centre-right opposition, those voting against it were It was the Catalan independence party Junts per Catalunya, with which the law had been agreed by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and whose representatives are among the closest to many of the politicians and activists affected by the amnesty.
After an initial “technical” approval, Junts decided to vote against the law because on Tuesday during the parliamentary debate Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist Party rejected all the amendments proposed at the last minute by Junts himself. The amendments aimed to make the amnesty even broader and more secure for the more than three hundred people involved. Now the law will have to return to the Justice Commission, where the terms will be discussed again.
The amnesty is the main element of the government agreement made in November between Sánchez’s Socialist Party and Junts per Catalunya, whose votes were crucial in allowing Sánchez to obtain a new mandate and in passing any law in parliament. The amnesty law would provide for the cancellation of “criminal, administrative and accounting responsibility” for more than 300 independence leaders and activists indicted for various crimes, and also for 73 policemen on trial for the excessive violence committed against independence protesters in the days of the referendum of 2017.
The amnesty is extremely controversial in Spain: according to a significant part of the political class, not only from the centre-right but also within the Socialist Party itself, it would be an excessive concession towards a movement which, with the 2017 referendum, directly attacked the Constitution Spanish. According to polls, more than half of Spanish citizens are against granting the amnesty.
A demonstration against the amnesty in Madrid (AP Photo/Andrea Comas)
Then in the last few weeks two judges had reopened investigations relating to illegal political actions, conducted by the independence movement and the Catalan Junts leader Carles Puigdemont, hypothesizing the crimes of terrorism and “high treason”, which are not included in the current law. The judges’ initiative was highly criticized and defined as “political” not only by Junts, but also by some exponents of the radical left Sumar formation. Junts’ amendments proposed in Tuesday’s parliamentary debate aimed to block these legal proceedings, as well as protect the law from possible objections from the European Union.
After the amendments had been rejected with the vote also of the Socialist Party, which had declared itself not available for new concessions, the seven Junts representatives in Congress therefore voted against the law, which was rejected (179 votes against, 171 in favor ). Now the Justice Commission will have a month to re-discuss the amendments and propose it again (it could become fifteen days if the “urgency” is defined).
The vote of confidence in the Sánchez government in November. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
The oppositions led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s Popular Party have strongly criticized the government in recent weeks for the concessions made to independence and for having brought it back to the center of the Spanish public debate, after a few years in which attention around the issue had significantly reduced . However, the votes of Junts and other Catalan and Basque independence groups are necessary for the stability of Sánchez’s government.
– Read also: Has Sánchez made too many concessions to the Catalan independentists?