In any civilized country around us, the passing of a law by the legislative power would mean that the rest of the powers of the state would proceed to comply with it as quickly as possible. In fact, this is what democracy and the separation of powers are all about. This is why it is said that sovereignty belongs to the people and that, emanating from the people, are the three powers of the state: legislative, executive and judicial. There is not one unique power, but three, with different faculties and attributions. But in Spain, the transition from the letter of the law to reality is not so simple and, for this reason, we all know that the final approval of the amnesty law in the Congress of Deputies this Thursday, by 177 votes to 172, despite being a slow and confusing process, a real marathon-length obstacle course, has been the easiest and fastest part of the path that now begins. That is none other than for the law to benefit all those accused of judicial processes because they hold a certain ideology and to extinguish all criminal, administrative and accounting responsibility for having promoted the independence of Catalonia.
It was just a matter of minutes after the parliamentary approval of the law that the prosecutors of the Supreme Court fired their opening shot: a 127-page report to the chief prosecutor of the state, Álvaro García-Ortiz, in which they argue that it is necessary to elevate the law to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) because it raises several problems of contradiction with the law of the Union. The four prosecutors who made the case against the pro-independence politicians over the October 1st referendum - Consuelo Madrigal, Fidel Cadena, Javier Zaragoza and Jaime Moreno - claim that the amnesty law does not respect the separation of powers, it is not foreseen in the Constitution and it affects the financial interests of the EU in the general framework of the fight against corruption. Based on this last point, they argue that the misuse of public funds convictions cannot be amnestied because they did provide a patrimonial benefit to the politicians tried over the referendum case. For this reason, the lifting of the interim measures cannot be applied, and the arrest warrants for Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín and Lluís Puig must be maintained.
The amnesty has been a political victory which, whichever way you look at it, has winners and losers
We will see what the chief prosecutor ends up deciding, in an institution where the principle of hierarchical dependence exists in order to guarantee the public prosecution service's unity of action. And, likewise, the steps that the Supreme Court takes, of which we will have public news before very long. The high court will go into battle - at least no one expects anything else. But it is important to know the exact perimeter of the area that the Supreme Court wants to fight for, since the current reality does not have equivalence with the judicial situation in 2019, once there existed, first, a sentence and, then, partial pardons by the Spanish government for the prisoners of the October 1st trial.
The amnesty has been a political victory that, whichever way you look at it, has winners and losers. Catalan independentism has emerged divided and weakened from its Cainite and childish battles. This is indisputable, and the election results of May 12th are still too fresh for them to be proud of the loss of ground since 2021. But this law is a breath of fresh air from which the repressors come out as losers, and it offers the restitutional idea that there was ideological persecution, forcing the Spanish state to rectify its discourse in Spain and in Europe. In a way, forgiveness is sought, since there is a rectification of a narrative which justice created in order to apply certain sentences. The approval of the amnesty law also teaches another lesson: in politics there is always room to overcome a 'no'. The multitude of videos we've seen these days of Socialist leaders who have had to correct their 'no' declarations of many years ago are an example of this. It's not that they want it now and they didn't before. But rather, that Pedro Sánchez has now demanded it of them in order to continue in the Moncloa palace. Either that, or they'd be kicked out. There was no middle ground.