Seeing them, all assembled around a table, the faces who in another era were part of Spain's crème de la crème of ideas and law, of both the right and the left, all united against the amnesty, explains precisely how things are and who's who in the civil plot against the amnesty for Catalan independentist prosecutions. The defenders of the regime of 1978 reshaped into the spearhead of a clearly putschist viewpoint discrediting the legislative and executive power that emerged from the July 23rd general election. There they were, gathered this Tuesday for the occasion, and presenting the book entitled La amnistia en España. Constitución y Estado de Derecho ("The amnesty in Spain. Constitution and Rule of Law") were the following panel of speakers: the philosopher Fernando Savater, the member of the Royal Spanish Academy Juan Luis Cebrián and professors of law such as Manuel Aragón, Enrique Gimbernat, Teresa Freixes and Agustín Ruiz Robledos. Like that, with 66 authors who have added their signatures in line with the civil instruction from ex-prime minister José María Aznar that 'whoever can do something, let them do it, whoever can contribute, let them contribute'.
There will be a lot of media coverage for this book, presented as having great ideological diversity among its authors, who collectively assert that "we consider that the amnesty planned by the government falsifies the rule of law in Spain", with the additional note that appeals so much in Madrid: "This book is not written against reconciliation and harmony. Much less against Cataluña (written with an ñ), as evidenced by the number of Catalan authors who take part in it; two even writing in their Catalan language". As if it were not enough to please the capital for them to find Catalans who feel only Spanish; if, in addition, they write in Catalan, so much the better. Like that Concòrdia Catalana, the conservative party that Juan Antonio Samaranch inaugurated in 1976, among whose members and leaders were the mayors of the province of Barcelona, appointed by the Franco regime and the first government of the monarchy, presided over by Carlos Arias Navarro.
In their old age, they have all gradually come together again around that phase of Franco's "atado y bien atado" - "very well secured". Cebrián? Many got confused about him, because he directed El País, a Socialist standard when Felipe González ruled, and they quickly forgot that he had also been editor-in-chief of Pueblo, evening daily of the dictatorship's Movimiento Nacional, directed by Emilio Romero. At the event, one of Cebrián's horror quotes, arising from the current debate about the amnesty's inclusion of terrorism offences which weren't committed, so as to avoid judges like García-Castellón, was the following affirmation: "All terrorists will come to take refuge here, because Spain will be a fantastic country as a refuge for international terrorists." Manuel Aragon Reyes? Ex-member of the Constitutional Court, one of the three judges who, in the middle of the deliberation over the Catalan Statute of Autonomy, which they wrecked, appeared, like a man of the people in the Maestranza bullring in Sevilla alongside Guillermo Jiménez and Ramón Rodríguez, his colleagues in the court, cigars in hand and perpetrating the attack on the Statute, which opened the doors wide to a new paradigm in Catalan politics.
Scrutinizing the Spain of the 'atado y bien atado' leads one to a list of throwbacks who defend a regime that collapsed by making a reading of the Constitution that was locked and bolted.
We finish with Teresa Freixas. The professor from Lleida was investigated by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), where she worked and directed a research group on Constitutional Law. The university opened an inquiry over contracts allegedly awarded to her family firm. I have not found the resolution of that file, and what there is, is constant criticism of the independence movement and assertions such as that the only justification for the amnesty law is to get seven votes, "the rest is hot air". Scrutinizing the Spain of the atado y bien atado leads one to a list of ancients who defend a regime that crumpled by making a reading of the Constitution that was locked and bolted. Not only unable to be modified, but with one single reading: the one that closes itself to any evolution. Because sociological Francoism refuses to die.