The PP of Isabel Díaz Ayuso advances that it will assert its absolute majority to prevent the Assembly from hearing the members of the citizen commission that concluded in March that up to 4,000 deaths of elderly people in nursing homes could have been avoided during the worst of the crisis. pandemic. Even when they are not summoned for that reason. An example occurred this Monday, when the Board of the Family and Social Affairs commission, dominated by the conservatives, rejected María Victoria Zunzunegui, summoned by Más Madrid as an expert in epidemiology and geriatrics, to intervene in Parliament. For Emilia Sánchez, a representative of the party that leads the opposition, this is an unprecedented case of “preventive censorship”, since she “vetoes it just in case” when she talks about the report on the residences. The PSOE fears that “an ideological bias” is being used in a “divinatory” way. And the PP, for its part, simply assumes that the report of the truth commission would be discussed, and contrasts that it applies the regulations against an unrecognized body that supervises a government that, in its opinion, no longer exists. , since it is from a previous legislature.
The Citizen Commission for the Truth in the Residences of Madrid, made up of family members, jurists and health experts, made public in March a report on the deaths of 7,291 elderly in residences during the pandemic. The most relevant conclusions of the document, based on hundreds of testimonies from affected people, relatives, and experts, pointed to an “inadequate” action by the regional government for restricting the number of referrals to hospitals during the worst of the pandemic. During the health crisis, the Community argued that the residences had been medicalized to guarantee the treatment of the elderly without the need for transfer, but the report maintains that the centers were not prepared for this task, neither in material nor in personnel. And he leaves this conclusion: “More than 4,000 people could have saved their lives.”
Although the regional Executive has never recognized this body, formed by popular initiative and without institutional support, Más Madrid has been in contact with its experts. And that is why he wants to call some, like Zunzunegui, although the purpose of his calls does not specifically mention the truth commission in the residences. An omission that the PP understands as a subterfuge, since it assumes that interventions like this would end up being mentioned in the report.
“Attention, censorship!”, Representative Sánchez denounced this Monday on her social networks, who then detailed everything that happened to this newspaper in a telephone conversation. “The President of the social policy commission [del PP] intends to veto an expert in case she talks about other topics that she doesn’t like,” he continued about an organ that lives from controversy to controversy, since the conservatives have already tried to silence a reference by a speaker to the 7,291 deaths (“if I can’t speak , I’m leaving,” he said) or they disgraced a representative of Amnesty International who denounced that there had been “human rights violations” in the residences. And she has recriminated: “This is done preventively. But Madrid had not even requested the activation of that appearance for the next commission.”
Más Madrid’s indignation is shared by the PSOE. “This is amazing,” lamented a deputy with many three-year terms behind him. “President [de la comisión] In a preventive and divinatory manner, he announces that although the Assembly Board authorizes the appearances, they will reject them because they understand that the intention [de las intervenciones] “It is different from the purpose of the call,” he added, referring to the fact that the Parliament Board gave its approval to the same appearance that the commission now rejects. “They judge intentions!” she exclaimed. And he ironically said: “Not even Aramis Fuster!”
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This is what the popular parliamentary group, led by spokesperson Carlos Díaz-Pache, has to say about it.
“The Board of the Family and Social Affairs Commission has indicated this Monday, according to its powers, that it will avoid fraud in the appearances that the left intends, which requests to summon members of the misnamed Commission for the Truth of Residences to talk about its report, when it is an unrecognized entity and a report that tries to supervise the action of a previous legislature,” they have argued in the PP. “The regulations of the Assembly are clear,” they have maintained. “Appearances are held if there is agreement from the commission, and this is not the case, and external entities appear for the exclusive purposes of reporting and advice (article 211).”
Attention Censorship!
Chapter 17 on the degradation of democracy in the Madrid Assembly. We inaugurate a new modality: PREVENTIVE CENSORSHIP.
The President of the social policy commission intends to veto an expert in case she talks about other topics that he does not like.…— Emilia Sánchez (@EmiliaSPB) May 20, 2024
These are arguments that are not surprising on the left. To reach this point, the opposition in the Assembly already had to overcome the opposition of the PP in the Chamber Table, where the president of Parliament, Enrique Ossorio, was restrictive.
“The Hon. Mr. President considers that, taking into account the background regarding the request for this person’s appearance, this initiative should not be admitted because it is the third time that this summons has been raised,” reads the minutes of the April 12 meeting. “In these requests, the justification of the expert nature of the person who is desired to appear has been changed,” he argues. “It seems like a kind of fraud because what is sought from the beginning is the same: that he appear to speak about a report in which he has had considerable significance, but that does not prove that he confers the status of expert who must attend whoever the Madrid Assembly appears in that concept.”
This argument causes an immediate scandal. Diego Cruz, of the PSOE, protests in his capacity as third vice president: “It cannot be accepted that from now on the ideological bias of the appearing party will be introduced to qualify these initiatives.”
If the criteria set out by Ossorio were always applied, explains the Vox representative in the body, José Ignacio Arias, “it would prevent most of the initiatives from being admitted.”
And Esther Rodríguez, representative of Más Madrid and second vice president, warns: “You cannot question an entire professional career because you have signed a report that is considered not very objective.”
After learning of a report from the Chamber’s services that supported the advisability of summoning the expert, the PP seemed to give its approval, and allowed the initiative to be processed at the Parliament Table. What appeared to be a victory for the opposition, however, was in reality a postponement of its defeat in application of the absolute majority of the PP.
Thus, this Monday, Zunzunegui’s veto has been maintained and expanded at the commission table where the testimony should be substantiated: none of the members of the commission will pass through the Assembly while the PP has an absolute majority. A decision that stands on two legs. The first, that the commission is not recognized by the government. And the second, that your report refers to an issue that occurred in a legislature other than the current one.
This argument, which seeks to distinguish the responsibilities of the Government that Díaz Ayuso presided between 2019 and 2021 from those of the government that Díaz Ayuso has presided over since 2023, has already been the subject of controversy. Thus, Más Madrid appealed in 2022 to the Constitutional Court, considering that the opposition work of its deputies was being made impossible: when applied, the opposition maintains, nothing of the management of the pandemic in the regional Assembly can be monitored.
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