To Madrid
The game of cat and mouse began as soon as the initiative was submitted to the Congress of Deputies on November 13.
It opposes, on the one hand, the Spanish left and the separatists, allies of circumstance, the former having agreed to forgive the latter of all crimes linked to their failed secession attempt in 2017 in exchange for their support for the government of Pedro Sánchez;
and, on the other, a small group of judges, worried about the possible unconstitutional nature of the amnesty and the invasion of their prerogatives.
But this unprecedented battle accelerated with the approach of the debates and the parliamentary vote scheduled for this Tuesday from 3 p.m.
Do jurists disagree on the distinction between convictions subject to appeal, which could be amnestied, and firm convictions, which cannot be forgiven?
Then the legislator runs to amend his bill to avoid an annulment by the Constitutional Court.
The politician excludes the most serious terrorism offenses from the amnesty law?
An investigating judge immediately jumped into the breach and linked the death by heart attack of a French tourist, in 2019, to the riots organized at Barcelona airport by separatists protesting against the conviction of leaders of the movement.
“Crimes of high treason”
A final, most recent example attests to this.
Socialist deputies convince separatists that crimes of high treason should be excluded from pardons?
So a magistrate resurrects on Monday, on the eve of this crucial vote, an investigation forgotten for years into conversations between secessionists and Russian agents suspected of promising their support for a Catalan Republic.
Could the former regional president, Carles Puigdemont, installed in Belgium to avoid action by the Spanish justice system, be the first concerned by these attacks on state security?
So his political party, Junts, put pressure on the socialists in power, in the last hours before the session, so that the amnesty also covers these possible misdeeds.
The image is that of a permanent confusion of powers and their limits.
And the political fight is superimposed on the quarrel of the elected officials against the togas, each obviously seeing only the speck in their brother's eye.
The right (People's Party, PP), the extreme right (Vox) and some socialist dissidents are outraged by a tailor-made law, prepared by the lawyers of those whom the courts have judged guilty of sedition, voted by their comrades party… and defended by the president of the government who excluded it during the electoral campaign but gave in to all the demands of the enemies of the unity of the nation with the sole aim of remaining in power.
The leaders of the Socialist Party (PSOE) took offense anonymously in the Spanish press: “
The fact that the judiciary acts on the basis of the legislature to try to influence the law is horrible and unacceptable.
The times of the judiciary are, it is empirical, aligned with those of politics and the legislature.
Every time the legislature moves a pawn, the judge moves another
.
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The situation visibly places the allies on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
On the separatist side, it is the legal fate of some 400 comrades which is at stake. The most emblematic of which, Puigdemont, who is waiting to be cleared to return to the country to re-enter the Catalan political game.
Junts threatens not to vote on this version of the law, which would then have to return to committee and be a month late.
On the socialist side, it is the stability of the government which is threatened, dependent on respect for the word given and the cordiality of relations with the secessionists.
“
At this moment, we are satisfied with the text and do not envisage any changes
,” declared the PSOE spokesperson.
But the parties continue to talk, and until the time of the vote, we still have time
.”
That, at the very least, of not angering his troublesome allies.