More than 200 jurists and people linked to the world of law have joined the manifesto “Jurists for Amnesty, Democracy and Coexistence” to express their support for the condition that the independentists have imposed in the negotiations for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez .
The former judge of the National Court, Baltasar Garzón, the former deputy of Unidas Podemos Jaume Asens, members of Izquierda Unida such as Enrique Santiago and Juan Moreno, the deputy of the commons Gerardo Pisarello, the lawyer and deputy in the Parliament Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas, the former progressive member of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) Concepción Sáez, the MEP of Unidas Podemos María Eugenia Rodríguez Palop are some of the signatories.
Nicolás García Rivas, Antoni Llabrés Fuster, Javier Mira Benavent and Guillermo Portilla Contreras, authors of Sumar's amnesty proposal; constitutionalists Javier Pérez Royo and Joaquín Urías; ERC senator Joan Queralt; the also leader of ERC Joan Ridao, Juan Pedro Yllanes Suárez (Podemos); or the former socialist mayor of Fuenlabrada Manuel de la Rocha Rubí, are also on the list.
The manifesto concludes that "the parliamentary majority can approve measures such as an amnesty law to help normalize the political situation between Catalonia and the State", and emphasizes that "the objectives of amnesties, according to current International Law, are to encourage reconciliation social".
Jurists agree that the pardon, "or other equivalent legal figures have been used in different parts of the world", and cite the cases of France, Italy, Switzerland or Portugal to exemplify the issue. Likewise, the text states that the measure It can also be applied to the Spanish context, since "the Constitution does not prohibit amnesty, which operates on conduct, but it does prohibit general pardons, which operate on final criminal convictions."
According to the more than 200 signatories, "they are trying to artificially generate a legal problem by those who violate the Constitution every time it interests their political objectives." In this context, they denounce the partisan instrumentalization of organized democratic institutions, in their opinion. , "on the right" in the social, political and judicial sphere, as exemplified "with the blockade of the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary for 5 years."
The manifesto speaks of 'demagogy' in the decisions that PP leaders took on past issues, and they emphasize, thus, that "the prohibition of the general pardon did not prevent a single Council of Ministers under President Aznar on December 1, 2000 ( PP), approved 1,443 pardons, without alleging any reason of general interest."
More attacks on the popular party that did not oppose "the pardon that General Armada benefited from in 1988", or its 'favorable position on "the amnesty for tax crimes", which "has been used profusely in our democracy by all governments except the current one, including those of the PP, the most important being those of 1984, 1991 and 2012".
For this reason, regarding the comments that other legal figures have made in this regard, in the text they demand "that the destabilizing attempts and attacks on the normal functioning of constitutional institutions cease," and they condemn the classification of "regulatory processes that have not yet begun as traps." ” or that the approval of measures through a parliamentary majority is described “apocalyptically as the beginning of the end of democracy.”
