The elimination of Franco's noble titles and other keys to the future law of democratic memory

Bone remains belonging to the Nerva mining column found in the 'Pico Reja' mass grave, in the San Fernando cemetery (Seville). PACO PUENTES

The democratic memory law will replace the so-called historical memory law, approved in 2007, and corrects some of the shortcomings pointed out since then by victims of Francoism and memorial associations.

These are the main novelties of the text, including the amendments agreed between the parliamentary groups, in the absence of its final approval.

Carmen Martínez Bordiú, Cynthia Rossi, Margarita Vargas and Luis Alfonso de Borbón, during the funeral mass for Carmen Franco in Madrid. GtresOnline

Elimination of noble titles.

The text that the Government took to Congress planned to prepare "a catalog of noble titles granted between 1948 and 1978 that represent the exaltation of War and Dictatorship" to proceed with its suppression.

At the request of several groups, including those that are part of the coalition government, the PSOE and United We Can, 33 titles will be eliminated directly, for greater legal certainty, "for a series of behaviors that violate human dignity and other fundamental rights committed in pre-constitutional times.

The titles with greatness of Spain that will be suppressed are those of Duke of Franco, Primo de Rivera, Calvo Sotelo, Mola and Carrero Blanco;

that of Lord of Meirás;

that of the Marquis of Arias Navarro;

and those of Count of Alcázar de Toledo, Labajos and Dávila.

Also,

the titles —without greatness of Spain— of Marquis of Saliquet, Queipo del Llano, Alborán, el Jarama, Varela de San Fernando, Somosierra, San Leonardo de Yagüe, Vigón, Suanzes, Kindelán, Casa Cervera and Bilbao Eguía are eliminated;

and those of the Count of Benjumea, La Cierva, Fenosa, Castillo de la Mota, Pallasar, Martín Moreno, Bau, Rodríguez de Valcárcel and Iturmendi.

The greatnesses of Spain granted to the Count of Rodezno and Fernando Suárez de Tangil are also suppressed.

The State assumes the search and identification of the disappeared of the Franco regime.

The main defect of the 2007 memory law, and this was pointed out by United Nations rapporteurs, is that the subsidy method implemented by the Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero involved subcontracting the families of the victims and the memorial associations to locate and open the pits.

In the new text, this task corresponds to the General State Administration, which will prepare multi-year search plans.

In the last 20 years, the remains of 10,000 victims have been recovered.

The coroner Francisco Etxeberria, who has opened many of these graves, calculates that there are "about 20,000" skeletons left to recover from clandestine burials of the Franco regime and that the process can be resolved in about five years.

The number of disappeared far exceeds that figure,

Portraits of the disappeared next to the common grave 'Pico Reja', in the cemetery of San Fernando (Seville).PACO PUENTES

Nullity of the Francoist sentences.

The 2007 law declared the Francoist courts “illegitimate”, but did not take the step of annulling the sentences they had imposed.

The socialist government at the time feared that if they did so, the victims and their families could claim financial compensation.

The text of the new law of democratic memory does establish the nullity of the resolutions of the different courts that the regime was creating to persecute the losing side of the Civil War.

In addition, as requested by ERC, EH Bildu and Más País, the term “illegitimate” will be replaced by “illegal” when referring to said courts and the entire Franco regime.

The new text, according to Executive sources, will not include new economic compensation for those who were convicted by these illegal courts.

Since the restoration of democracy,

the different governments have invested 25,000 million euros in economic reparations of different types for 680,000 people.

In 2021, the amount of these compensations amounted to 18 million euros.

Franco seizures.

The bill that the Government registered in Congress provides for an audit of property looted during the Civil War and the dictatorship, and implement "possible ways of recognizing those affected."

In this section, the text opens a new path for the PNV to claim the headquarters of the Cervantes Institute in Paris, which was the seat of the Basque Government in the French capital between 1937 and 1940. An additional provision provides for the restitution of assets seized during the dictatorship from political forces abroad as a result of judicial or administrative proceedings.

It would not be an immediate procedure, but it allows the PNV to reclaim the property.

Commission for the study of human rights violations until 1983.

The project for the law of democratic memory that the Government registered in the Cortes covers from the coup d'état of July 18, 1936 to the approval of the Constitution, in 1978. But it will include an additional provision to create a technical commission to study possible human rights violations until the end of 1983.

New places of memory.

The EH-Bildu spokesperson, Mertxe Aizpurua, also congratulated herself for having achieved the Government's commitment to adapt the San Cristóbal fort as a place of memory.

Located on Mount Ezkaba (Pamplona), it was used as a prison during the Franco regime and in May 1938 experienced the largest prison escape in Spain, which ended with 221 deaths.

Exhumation in the prison of the fort of San Cristóbal (Navarra). Aranzadi

In addition to the San Cristóbal fort, EH Bildu has also agreed to transfer the space and facilities of the Palacio de la Cumbre de San Sebastián to the town council.

Aizpurua explained at a press conference that it was the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during Franco's summer stays in San Sebastián and that ETA members José Antonio Lasa and José Ignacio Zabala were tortured there by the GAL.

The building, currently unused, now belongs to the Ministry of Territorial Policy.

New name for the Valley of the Fallen.

The law will serve to definitively extinguish the Santa Cruz del Valle de los Caídos Foundation, created by a Francoist decree of 1957. The complex, for which the Government is preparing a resignification plan, will be renamed Cuelgamuros, the original name of the valley .

Any mortal remains that occupy a prominent place in the enclosure will be relocated.

That, once Franco's remains were transferred, affects the tomb of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, next to the altar.

The Executive will give the family the option of taking it to the crypts where the rest of the victims lie or to another place they wish.

View of the helicopter that transferred the remains of Francisco Franco after his exhumation from the Valley of the Fallen.Mariscal (EFE)

Teaching of Franco's repression.

The new norm aims to update all the curricular contents to incorporate the teaching of what Franco's repression meant and the defense of democratic values.

An agreement between the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory and the Secretary of Education has already allowed these contents to be included in the decrees of basic education, ESO and high school.

Leaders of the PP and Vox have opposed ensuring that it is "indoctrination".

In his 2014 report on Spain, the United Nations rapporteur Pablo de Greiff dedicated a specific section to education in which he regretted that "some textbooks" continued to refer to the Civil War "in generic terms, perpetuating the idea of symmetrical responsibility.

Right to the truth and support for investigators.

The new law establishes the right of victims of reprisals to know the truth thanks to the creation of a specific prosecutor's office and through the so-called "restorative justice", whether or not the executioners are alive.

Researchers are also reinforced with an amendment that defends their work against third-party complaints and with greater guarantees of access to files.

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