Nothing that happened this Thursday in Congress is normal. In the current democratic stage, never before the lower house had discussed (and approved) a law – that of food waste – that returns with amendments introduced by the Senate, but without being … Allow the full discussion of all because four of them were vetoed at the table against the criteria of the institution’s general secretary, Fernando Galindo, usually aligned with the government’s thesis. For more Inri, the socialist Alfonso Rodríguez Gómez de Celis, who served as president for the absence of Francina Armengol, breached the regulation by preventing a change from the agenda, as the PP, ERC and Junts had claimed.
Everything goes back to the processing of the law in the Senate, where the government proposed the veto of four amendments registered by PP, ERC and Juns – to reduce the VAT of basic foods and benefit farmers and ranchers with measures such as the cogeneration of slurry – when alleging that affected the budgets. Article 134.6 of the Constitution empowers it provided that the proposals imply an increase in spending or affect collection. And according to sources close to the PSOE, in this case they meant one billion euros less to the coffers.
However, the Senate Bureau, with a legal report of its lawyers, raised the government’s veto when considering it inadmissible. The amendments, therefore, were processed normally and were approved by the plenary. All changes introduced into a law by the Upper House must receive the approval of the Congress, but the body that must pronounce on each one is, as expressly includes article 90.2 of the Constitution. The executive was aware that he had no majority to prevent the approval of these amendments and activated a maneuver at the lower house table, controlled by PSOE and add.
Its members brought the ‘in voce’ government, despite the fact that these amendments were already part of the law, and the major lawyer, Fernando Galindo, warned verbally – at the not being the matter in the order of the day there was no written position – that the decision adopted by the executive parties was contrary to the doctrine of the Constitutional Court.
Sources close to the PSOE point out that its members at the table consider the Senate’s decision to ignore the government’s veto. But instead of raising an institutional conflict or attending the courts, they directly chose to exclude amendments that the Upper House had approved sovereignly.
The Socialists claim that the Upper House should not have raised the government’s veto to these changes: “It is unconstitutional”
The PP moved tab this Wednesday afternoon. In addition to requesting a legal report from the major lawyer, he registered a letter to request the postponement of the debate of the food waste law, another to revoke the agreement of the table and a third of reconsideration. The popular demanded an urgent meeting of the governing body of the parliamentary activity before the resumption of the plenary to analyze their resources – the independence had also requested the reconsideration – but the PSOE convened the Board of spokesmen to discuss the matter one hour before the session, at eight in the morning.
There, the PSOE was the only group that opposed the debate of the law, which in no case was an urgent norm, and that argument earned Gómez de Celis to, having unanimity, refusing to modify the agenda. However, article 67.4 of the Congress Regulation requires the unanimity of the Board of Spokespersons for “the inclusion” of a new issue to be discussed, which not to change the order previously established.
The PP and Junts are coming when voting against the norm that created a state public health agency, which declined
To do this, as the regulation includes and confirm legal sources consulted by ABC, the competent body is the plenary. Article 68.1 of this regulation, which has the rank of law, establishes that the agenda of the plenary can be altered by this at the request of two parliamentary groups or of a fifth of the deputies. It was requested by three groups, pp, ERC and Junts, and more than a fifth of their lordships, because only the popular 137 already exceed that requirement.
Gómez de Celis refused. PSOE sources later alleged an alleged capacity of the government to recover that debate again although the plenary had previously decided to postpone it. They cite article 67.3 of the Regulation, which, again, speaks of the possibility of “including” another matter. The legal sources consulted by ABC deny that 67.3 can reverse what is decided by 68.1, which is also a precept, they add, automatic application. In just minutes after approval, the law was in the Official Gazette of the Cortes. A procedure that usually lasts days or even weeks.
A high voltage day
Before, all this resulted in great tension in the plenary session. The spokesman of the popular group, Miguel Tellado, took the floor at nine in the morning and asked to modify the agenda to withdraw the norm. Gómez de Celis won time saying that he would grant him to speak before the debate of the law, but Tellado protested angrily with a copy of the Congress regulation in his hand. The “accidental” president, as defined by the PP deputy, called him to order and asked him to sit down, to what the popular bench, challenging, responded by standing and patting on the wood of the hemicycle.
Just before the debate of the law, Tellado, Josep Maria Cruset (Junts) and Teresa Jordà (ERC) – this last in an equidistant tone – claimed that it be postponed until the table solves its resources. Nothing. The spokesman for the socialist group, Patxi López, took the floor, said that unanimity to modify the agenda is necessary to protect minorities and that a majority cannot decide that annoying initiatives are not discussed. An argument, however, without regulatory guarantee. Gomez de Celis earned him and began the discussion of a rule in which the Government still fit defeats, by approved that wolves hunt the north of the Duero River.
“They have mutilated a text from the Senate, there are no precedents in almost fifty years of democracy,” said Tellado. The Socialists insist that the base error is the “unconstitutional” decision of the upper house table by ignoring the veto to those amendments. The PP and Junts, such as ‘Vendetta’, changed their position in another law, with which a State Public Health Agency was created, and knocked it down after having supported her in commission.
#Congress #obvious #Constitution #mutilar #amendments #Senate
