The Spanish Congress fights back. After the institutional collision that the People's Party (PP) set in motion from the Senate following the parliamentary processing of the amnesty bill, the lawyers in the lower house have responded forcefully. A legal report, leaked by El País and to which ElNacional.cat has had access, maintains that the conflict between constitutional bodies proposed by the upper house as its strategy against the legislation implies "clear interference in the principle of parliamentary autonomy", given that the Senate "cannot take on auditory functions of the internal working of other constitutional bodies". The Senate had called on Congress to withdraw the amnesty text claiming that it is a "covert constitutional reform" that has "undermined" the constitutional attribution of the upper house in the amendments to the 1978 Constitution. However, the lawyers of Congress respond that "the conflict raised is inappropriate" because Congress "acted correctly, exercising its own competence". They says that the way the conflict is presented by the Senate is "an artifice to avoid fulfilling its constitutional obligation and to supplant Congress in the exercise of its powers".
The legal opinion states that, "under the guise of defending its powers", the Senate "cannot subvert those legitimately exercised by Congress" within the framework of the legislative procedure. It is a claim that would mean "a direct and obvious breach of Constitutional Court doctrine". The report also asserts that labelling the amnesty as a "constitutional reform" or an "unconstitutional law" highlights that "the real purpose of the conflict raised is to seek a pronouncement on the constitutionality of the law by the Constitutional Court, which does not apply at this stage of the legislative process".
Faced with the Senate's request that Congress withdraw the amnesty law, the lawyers are very clear: "There is no regulatory route that allows [Senate governance organ] the Bureau to have within its reach the possibility of agreeing to halt a legislative initiative at any time during its processing". And they add that a claim like this "would imply recognizing an excessive power in the Bureau". The lawyers also consider it "pertinent" to urge the Senate to "desist" from raising the conflict before the Constitutional Court and to "comply with its duty to legislatively process" the amnesty bill in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.
A conflict that arrives months late
Another of the arguments made in the report consulted by this newspaper is that "the conflict has arisen outside the deadline established". The document indicates that Spanish law governing the Constitutional Court, sets a deadline of one month after being made aware of the "decision in which the undue assumption of attributions is inferred". And it turns out that the Senate listed the initial consideration of the bill by the Bureau of Congress, which took place in November. The lawyers remark that this agreement was published in the official bulletin of Spain's Cortes Generales, the joint houses of Parliament on November 23rd, and that, therefore, it "cannot be doubted" that the Bureau's decision "came to the attention of the Senate as soon as it took place".