The Judiciary requests a new extension of the deadline to inform the Senate about the amnesty law

The permanent commission of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) has requested a new two-week extension to prepare its report on the amnesty law for process, requested by the Senate, with an absolute majority of the PP, on December 5. The reason for this postponement lies in the slowdown that the organic law proposal has suffered in Congress, after the negative vote of Junts, on January 30. In reality, the Judiciary has been paralyzing the drafting of its report for weeks now. Before the aforementioned vote against Junts, which returned the rule to the Congressional Justice Commission amid uncertainty about its future, the report was suspended due to the reform of the Senate Regulations promoted by the PP to retain for two months the bill as it passes through the upper house.

The two CGPJ speakers designated to prepare the opinion requested by the Senate are the conservative member Wenceslao Olea and the progressive Mar Cabrejas. Before the end of the year, both held a meeting with Council lawyers to establish a working method. But upon returning from the Christmas break, it was already clear that the processing of the amnesty law proposal presented by the Socialist Group in Congress was going to take time. Firstly, because it was evident that the PP wanted to slow down its parliamentary processing as much as possible, since a report was even requested from the Senate lawyers on the consequences of its eventual paralysis.

The straw that broke the camel's back, however, was the emphatic refusal of Junts to accept the current wording of the law, and the opening of a new period for political negotiation, within the Congressional Justice Commission and in other parallel conversations between the Government and the independentists. ERC already agrees with the proposed text, but obviously remains interested in the negotiations, with the Government's commitment that no agreement will be closed with Puigdemont's party without Junqueras' organization having complete information.

In their conversations with other members of the Council, Olea and Cabrejas have agreed on the need not to anticipate their work due to the possibility that the amnesty law still undergoes significant changes during its parliamentary processing, or even that it is not approved. At the headquarters of the Judiciary it is still believed that it is most likely that the law will obtain sufficient parliamentary support and will be published in the BOE to come into force next May or June. But, even in this case, the speakers believe that the most prudent thing is not to anticipate judgments on the constitutionality of precepts that may undergo variations. In other words, observations on the possible unconstitutionality of specific aspects of the law can even serve to avert that risk when the text passes through Congress and the Senate, and the Council is not responsible for preventing errors and legal advice to parliamentary groups. A member of the Judiciary explained it like this: “we prefer to give our opinion on the painting when it is hanging on the wall, not on the sketches.”

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