Eva Rodríguez
The Amnesty Law was approved last 14th March in the Congress of Deputies with 178 votes in favour and 172 against.
The PSOE bench celebrating after the approval of the amnesty law. Source: EFE/ Zipi
This law will directly amnesty 372 people who have open cases for the procés. From the politicians imprisoned in 2017, to the people who have been investigated for protesting, voting in the referendum or opening a polling station, to those who seemed for a moment to be excluded from the law, such as former catalan president Carles Puigdemont. Both pro-independence supporters and the central government agree that the law is necessary for harmony in Catalonia and greater understanding with Spain.
The amnesty law has been approved by Sanchez's legislative partners, including Junts per Catalunya, who voted against it the first time the law passed through Congress in January. Puigdemont's party argues that the new updates are vital as they focus on international law.
The reason Junts is now instigating this is because National Court's judge Garcia Castellon reopened a terrorism case against Tsunami Democratic. An independentist platform which participated and organised a demonstration that took place at El Prat airport as a protest against the sentences of the procés trial, and in which the judge argues that there was terrorism, for example for the death of a tourist from a heart attack. Garcia Castellon directly accuses Carles Puigdemont of being the founder of Tsunami Democratic and therefore of terrorism, a crime not covered by the January version of the law.
The Popular Party intends to use its majority in the Senate to reject the law in the upper house. This will cause the law to be delayed, having to return to Congress for final approval. They consider that the law is not constitutional, although they are not confident that they will be able to prevent the law from being passed. Feijoo's party is calling for "a conflict between the two chambers". This would be the first time this has happened in a democracy.
The situation between the two chambers is realised by holding a plenary session in the upper house to demand the withdrawal of the amnesty law in Congress and an appeal to the Constitutional Court. Due to the absolute majority of the Partido Popular in the Congress, this would go ahead, probably on 9 April. However, this may not be contested by the Congress, so the law will be processed normally, in addition to the fact that the law already has a favourable report from the senior lawyer and that it has an absolute majority in the Congress.
The president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonés, called for regional elections in Catalonia on the 13th of March. The reason: the budget. The Comuns voted against their approval due to their rejection of a macro leisure complex that Hard Rock Entertainment World plans to build in Tarragona. Given the refusal of Aragonés' party to stop its construction, the Comuns voted against the budget.
Should the intentions of the PP in the Senate come to fruition, the law would not come into force until after the Catalan elections, preventing Carles Puigdemont, fugitive in Brussels since 2017, from running in them; leaving Junts with the obligation to choose a candidate other than the former president.
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