The amnesty for Catalan independence activists that the Spanish parliament wants to approve will predictably cover 309 people linked to the Catalan self-determination movement and 73 police officers, Socialist Party (PSOE) sources said on Tuesday.
At stake are 309 people involved in criminal proceedings who risk being sentenced to various penalties, including prison terms or a ban from holding public office.
This group includes Catalan politicians, but also – and this is the majority – civil servants, firefighters or school directors, according to the PSOE.
For example, school principals are facing legal action for installing polling stations in educational institutions on October 1, 2017, during the referendum on Catalonia’s independence, which was declared illegal by the Constitutional Court.
Always according to the same sources, these are civil servants, firefighters or school directors who responded to decisions approved in the regional parliament (although illegal) and who ‘under normal circumstances’, outside the context of conflict and political tensions, when he was alive, would never have committed a crime.
As for the politicians who may be granted amnesty, such as the former president of the regional government Carles Puigdemont, who has been living in Belgium since 2017 to escape Spanish justice, the PSOE believes that amnesty is the way to reinstate them the constitutional system and ensure that they return to doing politics within institutions.
The 73 police officers who may be granted amnesty are involved in criminal proceedings for their actions in response to the independence movement, such as during demonstrations.
In addition to these almost 400 people with criminal proceedings and others who have already been convicted, the amnesty may also apply to others with administrative proceedings, for example subject to fines.
However, the PSOE states that the majority of these cases are closed and prescribed and no amnesty will apply to them.
In response to criticism from right-wing parties and other sectors in Spain, such as associations of judges and prosecutors, the PSOE states that the amnesty law is “without any doubt” constitutional and that on the other hand the European Union (EU) will not object .
The president of the Spanish People’s Party (PP, right), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, today believed that the Spanish parliament is preparing to approve a “clearly undemocratic” amnesty and expects intervention from the EU.
Last week, European Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders asked Spain for “detailed information” about the amnesty, arguing it caused “serious concerns.”
The Spanish government assured that it will explain “all the details” to the Commission and today sent to Brussels the proposed amnesty law that the PSOE presented to Parliament on Monday, also asking for a meeting to present the document to European officials explain.
The amnesty is the result of PSOE agreements with two Catalan independence parties, which in return will make Spain’s new government viable this week, emerging from the July 23 parliamentary elections and led by socialist Pedro Sánchez.
In the last legislature, the PSOE has already pardoned the independents in prison and has emphasized that tension in Catalonia has since subsided, that there is currently no unilateral self-determination movement and that the separatist parties have had all the votes in successive elections lost.
Source: DN
