The future amnesty law that would pardon many separatist activists for actions carried out in Catalonia between 2012 and 2023, which is currently being processed in parliament, could be unconstitutional and even violate EU law, according to a report by a group of legal experts that was published on Wednesday.
The group of jurists, members of the Spanish parliament’s Justice Committee, in which the extraordinary pardon law is being processed, believes that the Spanish Magna Carta (of 1978) may have to be reformed first to make room for the future measure of grace, Euractiv´s partner EFE reported.
According to the experts, the articles of the future law that would allow amnesty for crimes of embezzlement and terrorism committed by separatist activists between 2012 and 2023 – and as long as there is no final judgment – could be contrary to EU law.
Miguel Tellado, a parliamentary spokesman for Partido Popular (PP/EPP), the main opposition force, said on Wednesday that the lawyers’ report shows that the amnesty law is “a missile on the waterline of the rule of law” and stressed that the PP is “the only reference point for constitutionalism” in Spain.
Among the numerous “flaws” – allegedly unconstitutional – contained in the text of the future norm is the “lack of determination” in the scope of its application, both in terms of the offences pardoned and the period in which they were committed, the text of the report reads.
This indeterminacy does not correspond to the “exceptional nature of an extinction of responsibility or to the requirements of a singular law, which could affect the constitutional principle of legal certainty and hinder the unequivocal application of the law”, the experts wrote.
They also doubt that it can be deduced that amnesty, as a legal concept, is permitted by the Spanish Constitution since (amnesty) is open to the legislator’s scope of decision.
Ernest Urtasun, Minister of Culture and spokesman for the left-wing platform Sumar, junior partner of the Socialist party (PSOE/S&D) in the coalition government, told Catalan television TV3 on Wednesday that approving the amnesty law is “fundamental” so that no defendant “continues to pay for the consequences” of 1-O (1 October)”, the minister stressed, referring to the 2017 secessionist attempt in Catalonia, whose perpetrators, among them former Catalan President Carles Puigemont, since then self-exiled in Belgium, the new law will also benefit.
On Wednesday, Justice Minister Félix Bolaños (PSOE/S&D) said that “serious crimes (committed by separatists) should be left out of the amnesty” and recalled that the future rule already excludes these offences.
(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)
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