Two years have passed since the Democratic Memory Law came into force, approved – with the opposition of the right – with the aim of drawing a new roadmap after the previous norm, from 2007. There are several advances recorded, among them the beginning of the exhumations of the Cuelgamuros Valley or the creation of a specialized Prosecutor’s Office, but the memorial and human rights organizations regret the pending issues and are unanimous in pointing out as “one of their great black points” the lack of judicial investigation of the crimes of Francoism.
The time that has passed since October 20, 2022 has served the groups to verify what they already warned during the processing of the rule, despite the fact that the coalition Government insisted that the law would open the door to judging the crimes of the dictatorship: “However, it does not eliminate the obstacles so that they can be judicially investigated or so that progress can be made in clarifying the serious violations of rights committed” in the dictatorship, argue Amnesty International, CEAQUA, Iridia and Sira, which They have signed a joint statement.
The organizations put the number of complaints for torture, forced disappearance or extrajudicial executions filed by victims “in recent years” at around a hundred, more than ten after the new law came into force, but all have ended up inadmissible or archived. The last one, the one presented by Julio Pacheco for police torture during the Franco regime, who became the first victim of reprisal to be heard in court in our country. However, the case was archived in September based on the usual legal arguments and the ruling of the Constitutional Court that closed the door to the possibility of trying the crimes.
For this reason, on the anniversary of the law, the organizations demand the promotion of legislative measures that ensure that the courts cannot rely on the Amnesty Law of 1977 or the principle of legality. Thus, they ask for the repeal or modification of the norm and the reform of the Penal Code so that acts can be prosecuted that at the time of their commission were considered crimes of genocide or crimes against humanity by international law – and therefore, imprescriptible – even if they were not so. typified in Spain, which did not introduce this figure until 2004. However, the last attempt at reform in this sense was rejected by Congress with the votes of the PSOE, PP and Vox.
The Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH) joins the same claim: “The law alludes to the fact that judges can use international treaties and that is what they tried to sell politically as the end of impunity.” of the executioners, but the text was not made to end it, in practice it has been chosen not to do so. It was clear during the drafting of the law and it remains so two years later,” says Emilio Silva, its president.
From the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory they point out that the norm “fundamentally advocates restorative justice” and emphasize that the Prosecutor’s Office for Democratic Memory and Human Rights has been created and there are already designated prosecutors in many provinces “who are working on it.” and that “they go to the graves in order to establish the truth of what happened.”
This is one of the issues that the groups do celebrate, which applaud that the prosecutor’s office “has taken a position in favor of promoting” the criminal investigation in some of the open cases, although “it has not initiated any action” itself, they regret The law has also facilitated declarations of past events in court, a figure of civil law through which it is judicially recognized that something has happened and is judicial truth, as the Court of A Coruña did with a worker murdered by the police in Ferrol in 1972.
The departure of the monks from Cuelgamuros
In addition, the law has withdrawn around thirty noble titles granted by Franco, declares Franco’s courts illegitimate and annuls their sentences or toughens the removal of Francoist symbols from the streets through a decree that is already being processed by the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory. , which has also already launched the inventory of Places of Memory. In addition, the Ministry of Culture has initiated the procedures for the extinction of the Francisco Franco Foundation. “We are aware that there is still a long way to go. But the commitment is firm,” acknowledged Minister Ángel Víctor Torres.
The Cuelgamuros Valley – before the Fallen – is another of the pending issues that the Government has on the table: the remains of Franco and José Antonio Primo de Rivera have already been removed from there and the search for the remains of victims continues. transferred there without permission to return them to their families, a process hindered in the courts by Francoist sectors. At the moment, 12 people have been exhumed, of which 11 have been identified, in addition to another three from Borja (Zaragoza).
However, the departure of the Benedictine monks from the basilica is still awaited, which will be “consensual”, as the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, reiterated this weekend from the Vatican, and the conversion of the space into a interpretation center. For the moment, a website has been created that explains how the Franco regime conceived and executed its construction, but its resignation is being worked on within an inter-ministerial commission created last July despite the fact that three years have already passed since that it was announced that it would be done through a competition of ideas, which sources from the secretariat indicate that “it will be launched shortly.”
For the ARMH, progress in this regard is “slow and insufficient”: “It is incomprehensible that the Benedictine monks still remain there and also that since 2007, when the first law was approved, the narrative in the monument is exactly the same. than the one left by the dictatorship,” laments Silva, for whom it is “equally serious” that Franco’s tomb in Mingorrubio after his departure from Cuelgamuros has become a Francoist altar.
Commissions in progress and others pending
The Government has already created, although half a year late, the commissions provided for in the law to study the violence in the Transition, another to compensate the Gypsy people and a last one that will study possible economic compensation to the victims of the dictatorship, but still What is missing is the creation of the State DNA Bank, which aims to store the profiles of victims of war and Francoism and their relatives, “as well as people affected by the abduction of newborns,” estimates the law, which also mandates the implementation of a state census of victims that has not seen the light of day either.
Also pending is the audit of real estate plundered for political or ideological reasons, for which the rule allowed one year from its entry into force, and for which the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory assures that work is already being done. The same occurs with the inventory of works carried out by forced workers and the “reparation and recognition” of these victims. In this sense, the preparation of a census is planned and from there, the promotion of initiatives “by companies” that used forced labor “for their benefit.” Several memorial associations grouped in the State Meeting of Democratic Memory Collectives and Victims of Francoism and the Transition also demand the creation of the Democratic Memory Center, also pending.
The Secretary of State for Democratic Memory explains that many of these issues are in process: they assure that a computer instrument has already been acquired and technicians have been trained to develop the DNA bank, for which “regulations are now being made.” the upload of laboratory data from the communities.” In the census of victims “more than 400,000 records from military files and more than 16,000 from the agreement of penitentiary institutions have already been recorded” and forced labor “is under investigation in archives,” they add.
Regarding the exhumations of remains, the department led by Torres estimates the budget allocated to the first four-year exhumation plan (2020-2024) at 20 million euros through transfers to autonomous communities and city councils with which 5,600 bodies have been recovered, according to the Government. Silva assures that the model “favors exhumations,” but “we do not know how many of these people have been identified” because “there is no obligation to carry out a thorough prior investigation that would allow the remains to be delivered to their families.”
Parallel to the implementation of the new law, in several communities governed thanks to the alliances between PP and Vox, the repeal of their own memory laws and their replacement by the so-called concord laws has been promoted, which has motivated the reaction of the central government, which in the case of Aragon has already appealed the law before the Constitutional Court and is preparing to do the same, if there is no news, with the Valencian and Cantabrian text. Amnesty International, CEAQUA, Sira and Iridia are committed to not overlooking what they call “autonomous setbacks” on this second anniversary: “It seems that an attempt is made to make invisible the serious human rights violations committed during the Franco regime,” they conclude.
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