Congress sets for Thursday the meeting of the Justice Commission that will address the amnesty law | Spain

The Justice Commission of the Congress of Deputies will meet this coming Thursday, March 7, at 11:00, and in that session it will vote and presumably approve the proposed amnesty law for those accused of the process Catalan independence movement – those already convicted, those awaiting trial and those who have escaped – as confirmed by parliamentary sources. If the text goes ahead in committee, it will then go to the plenary session of Congress, which has not yet been set, and from there to the Senate, where the PP (with an absolute majority) plans to slow down the project for at least two months before its final approval and entry into force. The amnesty law, which the pro-independence parties set last November as a condition to support the inauguration of Pedro Sánchez, is now presented by the Government as its star project to attempt reconciliation in Catalonia. And it has also become, in full scandal of Koldo case of alleged corruption, in an escape valve for the PSOE in its Budget negotiation to give some stability to this complex legislature.

The amnesty was truncated on January 30, when Junts – fearing that its leader, Carles Puigdemont, would be left out of the grace measure – decided to vote against the law that that party had agreed with the socialists, and thus returned it to the Justice Commission. The origin of the clash was the refusal of the PSOE to include the new amendments that Junts demanded so that the amnesty expressly covered all terrorist crimes. It was his way of guaranteeing the shielding of Puigdemont and Marta Rovira (ERC) before the investigation by Judge Manuel García-Castellón, instructor of the caso Tsunami, which saw in the actions of both leaders in 2019 signs of a crime of terrorism with “serious violations of human rights”, which would have left them outside the amnesty. Junts then demanded a new wording of the law, but the PSOE opposed it, arguing that, in their opinion, both Puigdemont and Rovira were included. In the midst of this scuffle, last week the Supreme Court opened a criminal case for terrorism against Puigdemont.

“The last vote has opened a period of reflection that concerns us all. I hope that as a result of that reflection next Thursday we will be able to pass a reconciliation law,” Esther Peña, spokesperson for the federal leadership of the PSOE, said this Monday. Peña has assured that the socialists will not change the sections of the law that have to do with terrorism crimes: “The PSOE has taken a firm and clear position, we do not plan to make any modifications. We feel comfortable and comfortable with the document agreed upon with six parliamentary groups, and we understand that on Thursday it can obtain majority support to be approved in the Justice Commission,” she concluded. Party sources emphasize that the law could be endangered if they accepted Junts’ demands, because the Constitutional Court and European justice could overthrow it. What the PSOE does not clarify is whether it has accepted other types of changes in the law with respect to the text that was debated and not approved a month ago.

Calendar

In principle, and barring last-minute surprises, the project should prosper this Thursday in the commission because it has the support of the PSOE, Sumar, Podemos, ERC, Junts, PNV, EH Bildu and BNG, the parliamentary majority that also supported the investiture of Sánchez (who also had the vote in favor of the Canarian Coalition). The vote against PP, Vox, UPN and the Canarian nationalists is taken for granted. The next step in the initiative’s arduous calendar is not clear, because it initially encounters some parliamentary obstacles that these groups will try to solve in the coming days. The Government and the PSOE would like the law, after its forced passage through the commission, to reach the plenary session of Congress as soon as possible. The goal is for it to be Thursday of next week, March 14, but for that it must be on the agenda. An agenda that is already scheduled today and in which, for now, that bill is not included.

On Tuesdays, normally, the Board of Spokespersons approves and gives approval to the matters that are included in the agenda of the following week’s plenary session, but this Tuesday, March 5, it is not planned to hold that meeting, so there is speculation two options: that the amnesty plenary session be delayed until the following week (March 19, 20 and 21) or that the president, the socialist Francina Armengol, make use of her prerogatives and set a special and extraordinary session, as has happened on previous occasions, and anticipate that plenary session for some day next week. That whole mess has yet to be resolved.

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The Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, and the organization secretary of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, finalize the pact with Junts in this context and against the clock in the midst of absolute discretion. The same happens with Puigdemont’s party, where Jordi Turull, hospitalized a week ago after suffering heart failure, plays a crucial role.

The socialists want to try to get out of the crisis caused by the corruption scandal of the Koldo casethe alleged receipt of illegal commissions for contracts for the purchase of masks taking advantage of the relaxation of controls in public contracts during the pandemic and in which Koldo García, who was José Luis Ábalos’s trusted man in the Ministry of Transportation.

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