The fragility of Spain’s socialist-led minority government has been laid bare after its bill offering a controversial amnesty to Catalan separatists was scuppered by one of the Catalan pro-independence parties that had demanded the measure in return for helping secure Pedro Sánchez a second term as prime minister.
The draft law would apply to about 400 people involved in the symbolic, unilateral independence referendum of November 2014 and the poll that followed three years later and culminated in a unilateral declaration of regional independence that plunged Spain into its worst political crisis for four decades.
Its most high-profile beneficiary would be the former Catalan regional president Carles Puigdemont, who fled to Belgium to avoid arrest over his role in masterminding the illegal push to secede from Spain in 2017.
However, the bill was defeated by 179 votes to 171 in the 350-seat parliament after Puigdemont’s centre-right Junts party voted against the draft legislation, arguing that it did not offer sufficient legal protection for those being investigated for terrorism-related crimes. The bill will now be sent back to a parliamentary committee.
Junts’ parliamentary spokesperson, Míriam Nogueras, said that while the bill was “a good starting point” it did not go far enough and could be rendered worthless by “Spain’s prejudiced justice system”.
Although the conservative People’s party (PP) narrowly defeated Sánchez’s Spanish Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE) in last July’s election, it proved unable to form a government, even with the backing of the far-right Vox party and other, smaller groupings.
Sánchez was returned to office in an investiture debate last November after securing the backing of the two main Catalan pro-independence parties – Junts and the more moderate Catalan Republic Left (ERC) – in return for promising the amnesty law.
The move has proved unpopular with many Spaniards. A poll in mid-September showed that 70% of voters, including 59% of the people who voted for the PSOE in July, opposed the measure. The issue has also brought hundreds of thousands of people out on to the streets to protest in recent months. On Sunday about 45,000 demonstrators gathered in Madrid to voice their anger at the draft law.
While Sánchez argues that the amnesty – which he previously opposed – is needed to help Spain move on from the confrontations of the past, his opponents have accused him of hypocrisy, cynical manoeuvring and putting his own political survival before the country’s interests.
Speaking as the PSOE and Junts rushed to finalise the text of the doomed bill on Tuesday morning, the PP leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, said Sánchez was making a mockery of Spanish democracy.
“This afternoon, Sánchez and the PSOE will carry out the greatest affront to dignity, equality and the separation of powers seen in a western democracy,” he said.
Feijóo said the prime minister had turned politics on its head by “affording criminals the privilege of writing law and granting themselves an amnesty”.
Even if a new version of the draft law is later approved by congress – where Sánchez and his allies have a narrow majority – it will still have to go before the senate, where the PP has an absolute majority. Once law, the amnesty would be applied by judges on a case-by-case basis.
Ongoing judicial proceedings have further complicated political negotiations over the amnesty law. On Monday a judge at Spain’s highest criminal court, the audiencia nacional, announced he was extending his investigation into allegations that Puigdemont and other separatists helped direct the actions of the secretive pro-independence platform Tsunami Democràtic.
The judge has alleged that Puigdemont had played a leadership role within the platform, whose actions – such as closing roads and blockading Barcelona airport in October 2019 – “could be classified, in a preliminary way, as terrorism”.
The PSOE hastily agreed to amend the text of the bill last week to ensure that the amnesty would cover alleged acts of terrorism provided they did not involve “serious human rights violations”.
A judge in Barcelona has also announced an extension into allegations that Puigdemont sought to enlist Russia’s support for an independent Catalonia. The offence of treason is not covered under the terms of the draft law.
The government recently appeared to question the objectivity of the judge leading the Tsunami Democràtic inquiry after the environment minister, Teresa Ribera, said he had “a certain fondness” for pronouncing on politically related matters at sensitive moments.
Her words were rejected by the general council of the judiciary, which said they could serve to undermine public trust in the justice system.
