On this day, one year ago, the repeal of the Democratic Memory Law of Aragon was launched. It was not a day chosen at random: the announcement was made on November 20, the anniversary of the death of dictator Francisco Franco. The repeal of said law was one of Vox’s requirements to give its support to the Government of Jorge Azcón, support that would be broken a few months later, in July, after Vox’s demands on immigration matters.
The repeal of the Historical Memory Law in Aragon was one of the conditions of the agreement between PP and Vox to govern the community and this was recognized by Azcón in his presidential speech. On November 20 they began the process and on February 1 they took it to the Cortes of Aragon for debate, which went ahead with the vote in favor of PP and Vox, the abstention of the PAR and the votes against of PSOE, CHA, Aragón-Teruel Exists, Podemos and IU.
This measure was met with many voices against it, from opposition parties to memorial associations, who considered it to be a “real social setback because it was a moral recognition for the victims,” although at all times they have relied on legal protection. provided by state law.
The text of the repeal contemplates that the Census of Democratic Memory of Aragon, the Memory Routes, the Inventory of Democratic Places and Routes and the Democratic Memory Research Center are suspended. The Registry of Aragonese Entities of Democratic Memory and the Institutional Web Portal of the Government of Aragon on Democratic Memory are also eliminated. Furthermore, actions in the educational field related to democratic memory have been canceled or “replaced by actions on the History of Aragon and the relevance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Spanish Constitution for the Aragonese,” according to the text. .
After the repeal, the Azcón Government announced a concord plan in which no reference to the Franco dictatorship or the victims of repression during those 40 years of history is included. This plan contains 26 objectives, but does not establish concrete measures to carry them out. Victims of terrorism are specifically considered, and the word terrorism appears ten times in the 26-page text.
The concord plan was also marked by controversy since its announcement on April 5. A month later, the United Nations published a report in which it stated that laws like this one, called concord, violated human rights legislation by ordering “the suppression of multiple entities, projects, websites and activities of historical memory about serious crimes.” Human Rights violations” committed during the Franco regime and “planned or created in compliance with the state and regional legislation in force on the matter.”
The Government of Aragon rebelled against this UN report and Azcón sent a letter ensuring that the writing contained “hoaxes” and criticizing that they had not contacted the Executive for its preparation: “If they had contacted the The Government of Aragon would not have made major errors as they have, I understand that influenced by the information that the Government of Spain has conveyed to them, what that report says is simply a lie.”
The judicial and political journey of this repeal and the concord plan did not end the conflict with the UN. At the end of May, Ángel Víctor Torres, the Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, announced the appeal to the repeal of the law before the Constitutional Court and assured that “it represents a violation of human rights, he withdraws the sentence against the dictatorship and makes it much more complicated for associations and groups to exhume the remains of victims of Franco’s regime.”
Before reaching this appeal, Torres had invited the Government of Aragon to a bilateral commission to address the matter, but the regional Executive refused to attend and sent a letter in which “the full constitutionality of the aforementioned legislative repeal is ratified.” approved by the Cortes of Aragon” and considered that an Aragon-State Bilateral Commission “would not allow a solution to the present jurisdictional discrepancy that would be satisfactory for both parties.”
The central government’s appeal was admitted for processing on June 14 and at the same time it was agreed to suspend the repealing law for five months, in accordance with article 161.2 of the Constitution, which offers this possibility when the national Executive challenges provisions adopted by the autonomous communities. .
The Constitutional Court had to decide, as established by the Magna Carta in said provision, whether to ratify or lift the precautionary suspension once those five months had elapsed. The State Attorney’s Office asked to maintain it, but the Cortes and the Government of Aragon advocated the opposite, with the matter falling to the progressive magistrate María Luisa Segoviano. However, the Constitutional Court did not study the matter until days after the deadline. This means that since then the repealing law regained its validity and will continue to display its effects until the Constitutional Court definitively rules on this matter.
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