The lawyers of the Senate, where the PP has an absolute majority, have resolved that the Table of the Upper House has to accept the processing of the amnesty law even though article 104 of its Regulations does not expressly specify it, according to the criteria of the Constitutional Court. The legal services in turn censure the content of the norm: they call it “unconstitutional” and assure that the bill approved by an absolute majority in Congress constitutes a “disguised constitutional reform.” The lawyers’ report, advanced by The reason and to which this newspaper has accessed, it has been made public one day before the amnesty law is qualified by the Board at its meeting this Tuesday.
Governed by the PP, the Board requested two opinions in January: one on the content of the norm and another on the consequences of not admitting the initiative for processing when the norm is sent from Congress, as Vox requested. Of course, the popular ones were practically clear that they could not refuse, according to party sources, but they needed a guarantee against the attacks of the extreme right. And this has been ratified in the documents issued. In the text, the lawyers appreciate that “the Senate Board cannot oppose a different qualification at this phase, it cannot refuse the processing, whatever the result of this (veto, amend, or not pronounce)”, because Otherwise, article 90.1 of the Constitution would be violated.
With the legal reasoning in hand, the Senate Board already has a proposed agreement that is expected to be approved at the meeting this Tuesday. In said document it is clarified that it will be agreed to “admit the initiative for processing, considering that the Senate Board could not adopt a non-admission agreement, in view of the provisions of article 90.1 of the Constitution, from which it is deduced that there is an automatic obligation from the constitution to submit the legislative text sent by the Congress of Deputies to the deliberation of the Senate.”
At the end of January, the PP renewed the entire leadership of the legal services. The new senior lawyer, Sara Sieira Mucientes, is considered a specialist in the process. In addition to promoting the admission of the amnesty law for processing, the lawyers immediately censure the content of the norm, approved by an absolute majority in the plenary session of Congress held on Thursday. “It is worth noting the difficulties that the enforcer of the Law has regarding the intensity that unconstitutionality must have in order to be classified as evident and obvious,” the report indicates. And he calls: “Perhaps it is time for the Constitutional Court to review this doctrine. “Unconstitutionality does not admit degrees.”
Along these lines, and taking advantage of the pronouncement of the lawyers requested by the popular ones in the midst of the offensive against the grace measure, the proposal being processed by the Table also maintains that the amnesty law “is an initiative qualified by Congress as a Bill, when in reality it constitutes a hidden constitutional reform.” Something that, according to the text of the proposal, “represents a procedural defect and the violation of article 23 of the Constitution, due to the fraudulent use of the legislative procedure for purposes that are not its own, since in the Plenary Session of Congress there have been required majorities of organic law, insufficient to undertake a constitutional reform; and in the Senate, such processing as a Proposal of Organic Law – which the Chamber cannot vary – means ignoring the qualified majorities that are required in it to process such constitutional reforms.
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In November, the popular parliamentary group in the Senate promoted a reform of the Regulations so that laws sent from Congress that have been classified as urgent can be stopped by the Upper House. In this way, his path in the Senate can be delayed for up to two months instead of 20 days. The lawyers have also referred to this modification and recall that the Constitutional Court has yet to rule on this point, following the appeal filed by the PSOE before the guarantee court.
The popular ones have already moved this Monday, and have registered a letter before the Board so that tomorrow, Tuesday, the emergency process of the amnesty law will change to the ordinary process. That is, from 20 days to two months. Therefore, and according to the calendar, the law would come out of the Senate in mid-May. And with the foreseeable amendment, partial or total, that the PP intends to propose once it is sent to the corresponding Commission. Sources from the Presidency of the Upper House advance that this Commission will be the Justice or the Constitutional Commission.
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