Rubber balls, disobedience and disrespect to the police put the reform of the 'gag law' at risk

Riot police officers from the National Police charge, in May 2011, against participants in a demonstration held in Madrid. PEDRO ARMESTRE (AFP)

The reform of the citizen security law, known as the

, is from this Wednesday more at risk than ever.

The two meetings held in the last two days between the six parliamentary groups in favor of modifying the norm ―PSOE, Unidas Podemos, PNC, ERC, EH Bildu and Junts― have made it possible to bridge some of the differences they maintained, but have also served to verify that the divergences on three key points are still great.

Specifically, in the articles referring to the use by the Security Forces of riot gear and, specifically, of rubber bullets to deal with street riots (article 23);

the one that sets the sanctions for disrespect to the agents (article 37.4), and the one that sanctions with fines of 601 to 30,000 euros "disobedience or resistance to the authority or its agents",

The formations accuse each other of making the negotiation that lasts nearly a year seem doomed to failure when the deadlines to move it forward are close to the limit.

In fact, the foreseeable lack of a final agreement will cause the text that comes out of the parliamentary report (which only has one more meeting scheduled) to go, firstly, to the Interior Commission and, later, to the plenary session of Congress without having to the consensus of the investiture bloc and, therefore, its approval is up in the air.

Several of the groups privately admit that the reform is in danger despite the fact that in recent weeks the negotiations between the parties have gone beyond the walls of Congress to reach the addresses of the parties with contacts with leaders of the formations, according to details. sources familiar with the negotiations.

More information

The discrepancies in six articles slow down the final stretch of the reform of the 'gag law'

In the most controversial point of the reform, the use of rubber balls, ERC, Junts ―remembering that the Mossos d'Esquadra have prohibited their use and use

a supposedly less harmful viscoelastic material― and EH Bildu demand their express prohibition in the future text.

For its part, the PNV has so far advocated for a protocol similar to the one implemented in Euskadi by the Basque Government, which restricts its use by the Ertzaintza to such exceptional cases that in the last 10 years its agents have not fired any.

For their part, PSOE and Unidas Podemos proposed an amendment at the beginning of the negotiations that did not contemplate any cuts, although it advocated developing "specific protocols" to "always use the least harmful means for people and avoiding those that cause irreparable injuries".

Later, the minority partner of the Pedro Sánchez Executive proposed to bring positions closer to creating a commission chaired by the Ombudsman that would study "the transition and substitution" of rubber balls with other less harmful material.

Both parties insist that the

It is not the appropriate legal framework to address the use of riot control material as there are no specific references to it in the current text, and they advocate taking its regulation to another standard, specifically a future change in the Law on Security Forces and Bodies of the State, a rule from 1986 that, at the moment, no one has proposed to change.

At this point, the different formations accuse each other of intransigence in their positions.

Socialist sources point out that, according to a recent parliamentary response, rubber bullets have only been used by the National Police and Civil Guard on 46 occasions in the last three years, and therefore criticize that what they consider a minor matter puts at risk the rest of the progress achieved in the negotiations.

Unidas Podemos points in the same direction and concludes that "the good work done so far and all that has been advanced cannot be jeopardized for a very small number of specific issues."

The PNV also places the responsibility for the possible failure on those who insist on this prohibition: “Each group will have to reflect and decide if, despite all the improvements and all the advances,

ERC, EH Bildu and Junts reject these arguments and accuse the Ministry of the Interior of interfering in the negotiations on this and other points for fear of the reaction of the police unions, which have directly opposed the reform of the gag law and, in specifically, to the cut in riot gear.

Recently, these organizations have threatened to take to the streets again, as they did in November 2021. The PSOE denies pressure from Fernando Grande-Marlaska's department: "All the ministries give criteria on the amendments, [but] then everything It depends on the groups and what is being negotiated”.

In another of the points without agreement so far, the one that sanctions disobedience to the police, United Podemos has raised some changes in the current wording in recent meetings to get the support of the groups, including specifying that disobedience must be “ manifest” and resistance to the agents, with “corporal opposition”.

The proposal has had the support of the PNV and PSOE this Wednesday, but not with that of the rest of the groups, some of which recall that on this point an agreement had previously been reached in principle in which the Socialists later threw out backwards.

In that previous proposal it was indicated that disobedience would only be punishable if it was accompanied by “corporal opposition or physical force”.

Sources that have participated in the negotiations recall that this article is key to the reform, because it was used by the Interior as the main instrument of its punitive policy during the first state of alarm in 2020. During those three months, the Security Forces issued 1 14 million sanction proposals with this section of the gag law, when in 2019, the same article had been used to initiate only 14,747 sanction files.

In fact, the Ombudsman even requested information on the fines processed to determine if the police had acted during the confinement "correctly and proportionally".

The same has happened with the article that penalizes disrespect to security force agents, and which is one of the most used by the police to penalize since the rule came into force in 2015 after being supported by the PP thanks to the absolute majority that it had then.

At this point, the proposal has been made by the PNV, with the support of Unidas Podemos, with a wording in which it speaks of "humiliating, derogatory and offensive expressions or acts" that "objectively" discredit the police during the performance of their duties. functions.

At this point, the PSOE has opened up to assessing the proposal, but ERC, Junts and EH Bildu have considered the modifications insufficient because, in their opinion, they still leave open the possibility of "arbitrary" actions by the agents.

The meetings of the last two days have, however, made it possible to reach agreements on other points that, until now, have also caused differences.

One of them was article 30.3, on the subsidiary responsibility of the conveners of a demonstration for the incidents that may occur during the demonstration. Finally, the parties have agreed that they could not be held responsible "when they had arranged the security measures provided for in the communication, and compliance with the requirements that, if applicable, would have been made by the government authority.”

The stumbling block posed by article 17.2 (which allows the Security Forces to install controls in public places to identify and search people, and search vehicles) has also been overcome with an additional provision whose final wording was still to be finalized.

And, even, it has been considered removing from the future

the additional provision that guarantees the rejections at the border, known as hot returns, of migrants at the land borders of Ceuta and Melilla.

Some parties propose that they be addressed in a future reform of the immigration law.