MADRID.- The Senatewith a majority of the Popular Party (PP), rejected the Law of Amnesty that provides benefits to those involved in the processconsidering that it constitutes an “attack on democracy” of Spain, and returned it to the Congress of Deputies for them to decide on its final approval.
In this Tuesday’s session, the PP bench with those of VOX and UPN vetoed the law with 149 votes compared to the 113 of the PSOE and its allies Sumar and pro-independence parties, after a hot debate two days after the regional elections were held in Catalonia in which Salvador Illa’s PSC was re-elected and the independentists with Carles Puigdemont were defeated.
The PP also proposed not taking the Supreme Court and nullifying the conflict of powers with Congress over the Amnesty law, alleging a “procedural failure” on the part of the latter, which will be voted on in a plenary session to be held on Next May 16.
The Amnesty law, which was promoted by the president of the government Pedro Sánchez to agree with the independentists on his investiture and permanence in La Moncloa, It implies the forgiveness of terrorism and other crimes in which those accused by the process, without having been judicially convicted.
Leaders of Spain including those of the PSOE and Spanish society through massive demonstrations have protested the law since its inception for violating the Constitution and judicial procedures.
Amnesty Law, fraud against democracy
Senators from the PP and Vox considered the text of the Amnesty law a “huge democratic fraud” and “an act of profound political corruption never seen in democracy,” with the purpose of “infringing the Constitution.”
“Today we only find one thing, the ambition of a president (Pedro Sánchez) who would do anything to continue living in La Moncloa,” said PP senator Alicia García, as quoted by Spanish media. And it is approved “at the cost of the breakdown of the rule of law, the breakdown of equality between Spaniards and the breakdown of coexistence,” she added.
For his part, PSOE senator Antonio Magdaleno expressed, in favor of the law, that “Catalans are committed to coexistence and reconciliation” and this, according to him, would show that the majority of Catalonia “has turned the page on the ‘procès ‘”, he said, while the allies questioned the PP’s position.
The PP’s veto does not conclude the processing of the law, whose approval now by Deputies would be scheduled between the end of May and the beginning of next July, according to news agencies.
The amnesty that allows Sánchez to continue in power would leave the crimes committed unpunished.
Source: With information from RTVE, EuropaPress
