The Spanish Senate definitively adopted on Thursday December 22 a controversial reform of the Penal Code removing the offense for which nine Catalan separatist leaders were convicted for their role in the 2017 secession attempt.
This text had to be voted without a provision initially attached to the reform, intended to allow the renewal of magistrates of the Constitutional Court and at the origin of an open crisis between the left government and the conservative opposition.
Abolition of the offense of “sedition”
The reform of the Penal Code, voted by 140 senators out of 261 who took part in the vote, abolishes the offense of “
sedition
” and replaces it with a charge carrying less severe penalties.
It also reduces the penalties provided for in the event of embezzlement without the desire to enrich themselves.
The nine Catalan separatist leaders convicted in 2019 for their role in the secession attempt were convicted of the offense of sedition.
Some of them, who were members of the regional government, had also been convicted of embezzlement.
Sentences of 9 to 13 years in prison had been imposed on them.
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Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has made appeasement in Catalonia one of his top priorities since coming to power in 2018. He resumed dialogue with some of the separatists, in power in the region, and pardoned the nine separatists convicted.
With this reform, separatist leaders who have fled abroad, such as the former Catalan regional president Carles Puigdemont, will be able to benefit from lighter sentences if they are ever tried.
Ditto for the members of the separatist regional administration who are still being prosecuted.
This law was strongly criticized by the People's Party, the main right-wing opposition party, which denounced an "
à la carte criminal code for convicts
", but also by some of the socialists, annoyed to see the executive give in to the demands of the separatists.
Unprecedented institutional crisis in Spain
Another very controversial provision, intended to allow the renewal of four magistrates of the Constitutional Court, had initially been added on the sly by the parties of the ruling coalition to the bill which was voted on last week by the deputies.
But it had to be withdrawn from the text submitted to senators on Thursday after a veto by the Constitutional Court, seized by the People's Party.
This decision, confirmed on Wednesday after the rejection of an appeal by the Senate, caused an unprecedented institutional crisis in the country.
The government accuses the PP and the conservative majority of the Court of wanting to prevent the establishment of a left-wing majority at the head of this body, responsible for guaranteeing the proper application of the Constitution.
