The route of the bill would save the government parties the request for legal reports
MADRID, 5 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The law that abolished the crime of sedition, which Congress and the Senate resolved in just five weeks at the end of 2022, is the closest precedent for an express parliamentary process like the one now required by the Junts leader, Carles Puigdemont, to begin with. to negotiate the investiture of the socialist Pedro Sánchez.
In his appearance this Tuesday in Brussels, the former Catalan president, on the run from the Spanish Justice, has demanded the approval of an amnesty law before beginning to negotiate the investiture of Pedro Sánchez.
There is no date for that investiture, since the only one scheduled is that of the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who has his debate scheduled for September 26 and 27. And if the option of the ‘popular’ leader does not prosper, as is clear from the positions established by the different parliamentary spokesmen, the two-month period for an automatic dissolution of the Parliament due to blockade will begin to run.
When the ‘no’ to Feijóo occurs, the King will have to carry out a second round of consultations and, where appropriate, entrust the investiture to the second most voted, the socialist Pedro Sánchez, who in turn would need a deadline to close support. In other words, the debate on this new investiture is not calculated in Congress before the third or fourth week of October.
Could there be an approved amnesty law by then, as Puigdemont demands? The rules of Congress do not set all the deadlines and the pace of processing of laws always depends on the majorities in the Chambers and their governing bodies, but in this fifteenth legislature the PSOE and Sumar gained the majority in the Table of the Congress and, together with their nationalist and independence allies, could have 178 votes to carry out a law of this type.
There is a nearby precedent, the organic law by which the crime of sedition was suppressed, another claim by the independentistas, which was registered on November 11, 2022 and was approved in just over a month. And that it was necessary to convene extra plenary sessions in Congress because PP, Vox and Ciudadanos refused to contribute to advancing the debates.
The first step is to register a proposal for an organic law, which, being an initiative of parliamentary groups, saves the request for reports to the Council of State or the General Council of the Judiciary.
Then the text must be qualified by the Congress Table. In 2021, when an amnesty law promoted by pro-independence entities arrived, the lawyers dismissed it as unconstitutional and the PSOE, along with PP and Vox, agreed and did not admit it for processing. But now, with a majority of PSOE and Sumar and given the context, everything can be different. In addition, in any case, the criterion of legal services is not mandatory, since the decision is always political.
From the Congress Table it is sent to Moncloa so that the Government gives its agreement to the debate within 30 days, since it has the power to veto for budgetary reasons if it sees excess spending or a decrease in income. But in the case of sedition, the Executive had 29 days left to rule and just 24 hours after the bill was sent to it, it had already read it and given its approval.
The PSOE and Sumar, with their partners, can also assert an absolute majority to impose processing through the urgent procedure, which cuts the deadlines in half, and thus speeds up its debate and approval in the Plenary of the Chamber. As it is an organic law, it requires an absolute majority, which are the votes gathered by the Socialists to make Francina Armengol president of Congress.
And from Congress it will go to the Senate, where the main stumbling block is because the PP has an absolute majority in the Upper House and could slow down the process by demanding legal reports and refusing to approve it. In any case, if that text is vetoed in the Senate, Congress can lift it the following week with the same absolute majority with which it left the Lower House.
