Congress has just made official its rejection of the request made by the Senate on account of the Amnesty law. The Board, chaired by Francina Armengol (PSOE), has relied for its decision on a harsh report sent yesterday by its lawyers in which they call the conflict of powers put forward by the Upper House "inadmissible". So confident is the position of the Socialist Party that it has urged the Senate to appeal to the Constitutional Court within a month on the substance and form of the processing of the law. Although, he has warned, they may fear that it will "backfire."
The Upper House, by virtue of the majority held by the PP, promoted this unprecedented institutional clash by considering that the draft of the norm is a "disguised reform of the Constitution."
The legal body of Congress, however, defends having exercised its powers "in the constitutionally and legally established terms." And he adds that now it is up to the Senate to carry out its turn in accordance with the powers granted to it by the Constitution and not, as it would have attempted, by attempting to supplant Congress.
The Table, yes, has added a political argument to the strictly legal foundation of the lawyers. The vice president of the Congress of Deputies, Alfonso Rodríguez Gómez de Celis, has verbalized the discomfort of the governing body of the Lower House: "It is an institutional disloyalty without precedent in the democratic history of our country. Never before, never before, the "The Senate has tried to subvert the order to also become the Constitutional Court to defeat a legislative initiative by the Congress of Deputies. It is an unprecedented fact and, therefore, we cannot admit it from a legal point of view," he noted.
"After the backfire that the Senate had with the Venice commission, I understand that the majority of the Popular Party is seriously thinking about whether to complain, appeal to the Constitutional Court or not. Because a second setback would be a significant level of ridicule" , he added.
The legal report from Congress rejects reversing for three reasons. The first is that he understands that the conflict was presented after the deadline. In this sense, he explains that the Board accepted the processing of the amnesty as a bill on November 23, "so the established period of one month would have more than elapsed" for the Senate to have requested its revocation.
The second is based on defending that it has limited itself to fulfilling its powers based on article 90 of the Constitution. And, after remembering that it lacks the power to paralyze “a legislative initiative at any time during its processing,” it also appeals to the Senate to do the same and stick to this heading, instead of “subverting” the powers “legitimately exercised by Congress.” ", which "would be an artifice to avoid fulfilling its constitutional obligation and supplanting" Congress.
And the third and final reason given by Congress is that, in its opinion, the Senate's "true intention" is to present a "covert and untimely" appeal for unconstitutionality, "which is not appropriate in this phase of the legislative procedure."
