At the end of July, the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court raised a question of unconstitutionality against the Amnesty Law so that the Constitutional Court could rule on the legality of the grace measure. When faced with a question of unconstitutionality, the Congress, the Senate, the Government and the Prosecutor’s Office are always given a voice so that they can appear or make allegations, as stated in article 37 of the Constitutional Court Law. However, as LA RAZÓN has learned, the Lower House has now avoided appearing or making allegations to defend the Amnesty Law, while the Senate has presented an extensive document in which it includes the constitutional violations of the norm.
According to sources familiar with the ins and outs of Congress, the Lower House has avoided defending the Amnesty and has argued that the usual thing, in this type of situation, is that they only offer to collaborate with the Constitutional Court by providing the necessary documents. In fact, it is also common for them to only argue when the judicial instance has presented a question of unconstitutionality that includes errors of parliamentary procedure. In the opinion of Congressional lawyers, the Supreme Court has not invoked procedural errors and, therefore, they have not presented allegations.
On the other hand, the writing of the Senate lawyers does incorporate up to 22 pages that collect one by one all the violations of parliamentary procedure that have arisen during the processing in Congress. It is worth remembering, without going any further, that the Plenary itself came to overthrow the Law, but the Congress Board, dominated by PSOE and Sumar, decided to return the initiative to the Justice Commission so that it could be revived even though the regulation would have been that The entire process would start again.
Specifically, the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, in a harsh document, presented a question of unconstitutionality against the Amnesty, considering that it violates the right to “equality before the law”, as well as the principles of “legal security and prohibition of arbitrariness”. «We do not present a doubt, in the genuine sense of the term, in the interest that it can be cleared up. We are absolutely convinced that the questioned norm violates, at least, the constitutional precepts that will be said,” states the order of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, which deals with the appeal of a person convicted of the crime of public disorder aggravated by some events that occurred. in Girona in October 2019, although he also acknowledged that his criteria are not “decisive.” “It is exclusively up to the Constitutional Court to rule effectively on the matter,” he added.
In any case, it can be said that the Constitutional Court’s is not the last word. In a recent order, in which he resolves an appeal against his decision not to apply the amnesty, he already warns that if the criteria of the TC are contrary, he is considering presenting a preliminary ruling before Europe, which would have suspensive effects on the amnesty and would have preference over the Court of Guarantees.
The deadline for the allegations of the constitutional bodies ended a little over a week ago and, now, according to the Law of the Constitutional Court itself, there are 15 days to issue a sentence, unless it is deemed necessary to extend the deadline to 30 days, although it must be justified. . In this way, probably, the response given by the Court of Guarantees to the Supreme Court will be the body’s first pronouncement on the amnesty, a law that has been surrounded by controversy due to its dubious legality and because it was born from Pedro Sánchez’s need to be invested with the votes of Junts.
Predictably, the Constitutional Court will rule in favor of endorsing the constitutionality of the law since there is a progressive majority. The PP has also ended up presenting an appeal for unconstitutionality and it is also foreseeable that Congress will present allegations. It should be remembered that Congressional lawyers related to Secretary General Fernando Galindo prepared a report that endorsed the processing of the amnesty and avoided commenting on the constitutionality of the law. That has been the only report favorable to the law throughout the entire process, since, subsequently, there have been three against it.
The amnesty is already being applied and there have been many pro-independence supporters who have benefited, but there is still a lack of “procés” leaders, such as Carles Puigdemont. In the case of Puigdemont, the Supreme Court has no intention of even raising a question of unconstitutionality regarding the crime of embezzlement since it considers that it is not directly applicable.