Together for Catalonia (Junts), the Republican Left (ERC) and the Spanish Socialists (PSOE) have reached a definitive agreement on the text of the Spanish law for an amnesty on Catalan independence process prosecutions. The accord between the three parties contemplates some modifications to the legislation in order to "reinforce" it and ensure that it "covers all the people linked to the independence process". That is what is stated in the joint statement that they have released, which gives no further details about the content of the modifications. ElNacional.cat has, however, learned that one of the changes that will be passed this Thursday by Congress's justice committee covers the crimes of terrorism, high treason and misuse of public funds: the first two are included in the scope of the amnesty "adapted to European standards and not to the Spanish Penal Code" and the misuse of public funds is framed within "the main recommendations of the Venice Commission", according to Junts sources, hours before the transactional amendment is to be made public.
From Carles Puigdemont's party, they emphasize that it is a "comprehensive law", which "includes everyone" and is "immediately applicable". These were the three fundamental demands of Together for Catalonia from the start of the negotiation with the PSOE and the parliamentary processing of the draft bill. Another of the requests Junts made in its amendments was to extend the start date of the amnesty to a date two months earlier than the original date, January 1st, 2012. And the PSOE has in the end agreed: thus, the coverage of the law begins from November 1st, 2011 so that "all the defendants" in the Court of Accounts cases are included. For example, an expense attributed to the spokesperson for the Catalan government, Francesc Homs, being investigated by a Barcelona court. "Judges who do not want to apply this law will have to abuse their office", the same sources say.
The exact and complete wording of the transactional amendment agreed between the three actors will be made public this Thursday and will receive the green light from the justice committee around midday. Before all of this, there will be time for public explanations. The Spanish government's presidency minister, Félix Bolaños, will speak to the media at 9:15an . before entering an event at the Congress of Deputies. Later, the two pro-independence parties will do the same. Míriam Nogueras, spokesperson for Junts in Congress, will speak at 10:45am in the courtyard of the lower house and ERC will also attend to journalists during the morning.
An agreement that comes after the Junts' 'no' to the previous text
The modifications agreed to have been possible because the amnesty was not passed when initially submitted to the lower house (January 30th) and was returned to the justice committee since Junts has voted in favour of the overall "skeleton" text but had refused to validate the final draft amendment. At that time, Míriam Nogueras argued that the draft had "holes through which the abusive Spanish justice system" could pass, turning it into "waste paper" and argued that "stopping the repression halfway is not stopping it". Thus, the parties gained time to negotiate and bridge their differences (in the beginning they had two weeks, which ended up becoming a whole month). Now, from Junts they emphasize that their position has made it possible to finally have a "law with guarantees" in which they have been able to incorporate "all the improvements of the Venice Commission". In this way, Junts concludes that they will be able to pass a law "in accordance with the standards of international law and prepared for the European route".