The Parliament, in a session marked by the Government’s contacts with the group’s inmates, knocks down the PP’s proposal to reform four laws related to the victims
On Tuesday, Congress rejected the PP’s proposal to immediately implement a battery of legal reforms to toughen prison treatment for ETA members and prevent the ‘ongi etorri’ (acts of public tribute) to recently released terrorists. In the absence of the final result of the vote that will take place late in the afternoon, the so-called “proposal for an Organic Law to improve the protection regime for crime victims” presented by the Popular Parliamentary Group will not go ahead, according to the position contrary to the proposal announced by the parties that support the Government in today’s afternoon session.
It was a heated debate marked by the revelation by the Civil Guard of the contacts of the Ministry of the Interior with the environment of the ETA prisoners and in which the popular ones took the opportunity to denounce from the tribune the “secret plot” of Pedro Sánchez to “associate with the executioners to stay in power.
The proposal of the PP knocked down by Parliament was a far-reaching reform that implied modifying four laws and a regulation: the organic laws of Penitentiary, of Citizen Security (gag law), of the Right of Assembly and of the Judicial Power; the law of the Statute of the Victim of the Crime and the Penitentiary Regulation. The popular, despite recognizing the advances in the protection of the victim since the entry into force of its Statute in 2015, denounced, however, that the victims of terrorism still did not have sufficient protection, especially before the granting of benefits prisons to their victims and in the face of “aggressions against their dignity” such as the ‘ongi etorri’ that have been taking place in the Basque Country and Navarra in recent months.
“Lagoons”
The rejected text, which sought to “cover certain gaps in the defense of their dignity and their rights as a whole”, placed particular emphasis on reducing the capacity of the prison administration to provide benefits to ETA inmates. One of the key changes was the reform of article 62 of the Penitentiary Law to veto the granting of the third degree to those convicted of terrorism who had not “showed unequivocal signs of having abandoned the terrorist ends and means” and who had not “collaborated actively with the authorities” to “prevent the production of other crimes by the armed gang, organization or terrorist group”, or “to mitigate the effects of their crime”, or to help “identify, capture and prosecute” to other terrorists.
Another of the core modifications proposed by the PP was to touch on the famous article 100.2 of the prison regulations, which is the one usually used by the Ministry of the Interior to be able to give third-degree benefits (such as exits) to second-degree prisoners. That mixed model from which ETA members and other controversial inmates have benefited, according to the text that did not go ahead, could only have been used for the prisoner who “denies the criminal acts committed, shows repentance, abandons the will to reoffend and collaborate in the investigation and prevention of crimes similar to those that gave rise to his conviction.”
‘Ongi etorri’
To try to put an end to the ‘ongi etorri’, the PP had proposed reforming the 1983 Organic Law on the Right of Assembly to empower the “government authority” to “suspend” or “dissolve” any meeting or demonstration that is “organized to receive and pay tribute» to the perpetrator of a terrorist crime. Similarly, the proposal of the popular advocated modifying the gag law so that, once the government authority suspended an ‘ongi etorri’, the municipalities would be “prohibited from facilitating the celebration with any type of measure” with the threat of sanctions “very serious” to the “authorities or officials of the city council” who would promote the tributes to the released ETA members.
The popular spokeswoman in Congress, Cuca Gamarra, defended this Tuesday from the rostrum that the reform of her group was essential to “end moral, political and social impunity.” But above all, the popular leader attacked the Government for its “votes for prisoners” tactic. Gamarra recalled that since the arrival of Sánchez there have been 209 transfers of ETA members, 25 third degrees and 14 provisional freedoms and this, despite the fact that ETA “continues not to collaborate in solving the crimes”. Some movements, she said, that are a “betrayal of the memory of the dead.”
“Without legal rigor”
The PSOE was positioned from the beginning against the text. “They do politics with the pain of the victims of terrorism,” reproached the socialist Miguel González Caballero. “You have not come to defend the victims, but to attack the government. His proposal does not have legal rigor, “González abounded.
From Bildu, Jon Iñarritu, denounced that the popular proposal “is about using the victims to do politics.” “This proposal is the criminal law of the enemy,” assured the abertzale deputy. “It is unconstitutional because the Magna Carta itself certifies that the purpose (of custodial sentences) must be reintegration. This is closer to revenge and revenge than to justice,” said Iñárritu.
The PNV took a very similar line. “It is a proposal that shows distrust towards justice, surveillance courts and prison professionals,” said Mikel Legarda, who criticized the “repressive vision” of the popular initiative, which “tries to restrict the model of individualization” of sorrow