After 45 years of the Constitution being in force in this democratic stage, unprecedented, unprecedented situations continue to occur in the Congress of Deputies, which experts have yet to interpret.
This is what happened this Tuesday in the long-awaited plenary session to debate and approve the amnesty law promoted by the PSOE and its partners to benefit the leaders convicted and prosecuted for the independence process in Catalonia at the request of the Catalan separatist parties, Junts and ERC. .
Junts once again stretched the tension of this complex negotiation by first voting affirmatively on the opinion of that law, which it had already approved last week with the other allies of the Executive in the Justice commission, but then voted against it with the PP and the extreme right. of Vox to validate the entire project, because it still wants to prolong the negotiation further.
“A selective and deferred amnesty is not what we signed,” warned Miriam Nogueras, the spokesperson for Carles Puigdemont's party.
This determination by Junts, which requested the approval of its amendments in exchange for its vote in favor of the final text and to which the PSOE did not agree, caused this first and painful defeat of the Government project at the beginning of an increasingly parliamentary legislature. uncertain.
The opinion of the law thus returns to the Justice Commission, where the parties will have to decide in 15 days whether to retouch that opinion or if they negotiate corrections in the amendments that are considered alive in that forum.
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Junts paralyzes the processing of the amnesty law by not obtaining more transfers from the Government
The most emblematic project of this 15th legislature that has not yet taken political flight was thus slowed down in that first full session of Congress.
In the end, the PSOE and Sumar in the Government gathered 171 votes in favor of this text (the seven from ERC, the six from EH Bildu, the five from the PNV, the four from Podemos and the one from the BNG), which on November 13 the socialists registered alone.
The parliamentary right added 179 against, eight more rejections, by adding to the 135 PP deputies the 33 from Vox, the Unión del Pueblo Navarro, the Canarian Coalition and the seven parliamentarians from Junts.
The socialists in the government kept open contacts with Junts until the end, to the point that during the full debate itself some of the negotiators were absent from the chamber, as did the ERC leader, Oriol Junqueras, who was present at some point. in the guest gallery and possible beneficiary of the amnesty, the spokesperson for Junts, the Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños or the Secretary of Organization of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán.
All those attempts were in vain.
Bolaños declared, at the end of the session, that he did not understand the position of Junts - which had endorsed the text in question four times previously -, he valued the content of the law as "impeccable, solid and fully constitutional" and added: "It is “It is incomprehensible that Junts votes against a law that has been agreed upon.”
The spokesperson for Junts, Miriam Nogueras, with a direct connection to the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who fled from Spanish justice and resides in Brussels, expressed herself forcefully as always.
Junts, Nogueras stressed, “wants a comprehensive amnesty that leaves no one behind, no one out.”
On half a dozen occasions, the separatist leader disqualified the Spanish justice system, and specifically the judicial leadership, as "prevaricating" and rejected what she called the PSOE's intention to apply a "selective amnesty" when she understands that the top judicial officials of the State take “arbitrary” measures and “take crimes out of their pockets” to “play politics” and “persecute” the pro-independence Catalan leaders in this way.
Miriam Nogueras thus maintained that the PSOE "lets itself be dragged" by this "judicial political agenda" and placed them on the same level as the PP as parties that do not want to "break the Francoism installed in many State institutions."
The Junts spokesperson blamed the PSOE for not accepting more amendments to the text of the law that they agreed upon last week, and that already extended the possible beneficiaries of the amnesty to all crimes except terrorism against human rights or torture. because he pointed out that the socialists had informed them that the rule could be challenged in a year by the High Court of Justice of the European Union.
The deputy did not explicitly advance Junts' voting position in that first intervention, but she left evidence in the chamber that it would not be affirmative.
The other allied parties of Pedro Sánchez's investiture, who took office just 75 days ago, complied with what was planned.
The PNV spokesperson, Mikel Legarda, who was the first to speak and set the tone for the others.
The partners of the Executive support the amnesty because they believe that this political decision could "contribute to the general interest of harmony and manage a political and institutional crisis in another way than through judicial means", in reference to how the separatist challenge was faced in 2017 by the Mariano Rajoy's PP government.
It was the thesis that was repeated by the ERC spokesperson, Pilar Valluguera, Néstor Rego, from the BNG, Martina Valverde, from Podemos, Jon Iñarritu, from EH Bildu, and Gerardo Pisarello, from Sumar.
Pilar Valluguera took the opportunity, as ERC representatives always do now, to throw an internal electoral dart at Junts by warning that this opportunity should be taken advantage of to carry out a rule that could benefit 1,500 Catalans and she did consider the rule sufficient. and robust and emphatically denied that any terrorist act took place in Catalonia in those years.
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The amnesty law shields the CDRs prosecuted for terrorism because they did not take action
Just before the plenary session, the PP withdrew the validity of its 22 amendments to alter the order of intervention of its leader, who took advantage of the occasion to act as a representative of the force with the most votes in last place.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, did not enter the chamber until after the debate, when the plenary session stopped to record the votes at the end.
Feijóo summarized his opposition as soon as he began to speak: “The law is a payment, a disbursement from the PSOE that the independence movement receives with the sole purpose of Pedro Sánchez remaining in power.”
He then repeated the popular argument about the humiliation and daily indignity to which Sánchez has subjected the PSOE.
And he did not miss the opportunity to harshly attack some of his partners, most particularly against the PNV and Junts.
Vox attacks the PP
Santiago Abascal, the leader of Vox, attacked the law as “betrayal by Sánchez”, “political corruption” and “demolition of the rule of law”, but dedicated a good space to demonize the style of “part-time opposition, on Sundays”. but not on Mondays” from Feijóo's PP.
After the vote, a profusion of groups broke out with different versions about the next steps that would have to be taken with the law starting tomorrow because the experts consulted had no precedents on which to base them.
The bill was not approved, but its opinion was.
This text is the one that will return to the Congress' Justice Commission, which ratified it last week.
The commission could assume it in its entirety or change it, with the discussion of the live amendments that came to that session and that could now be modified if a majority agrees.
Article 131 of the Congress Regulations sets a deadline of one month to resolve this obstacle, but it could be shorter and reduced to 15 days if it is taken into account that at the time the processing of this rule was approved by emergency means.
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