The approval of the Law of Democratic Memory represents an important advance for the strengthening of Spanish democracy and the culmination of the path of reconciliation undertaken with the transition. Because that is what this law is about, to complete the transition, which had a laudable and successful objective, the reconciliation of the Spaniards that was embodied in the 1978 Constitution, but that was done with the oblivion of the victims of Francoism, since that those of the coup camp had already been widely recognized and repaired.
The purpose of the Law is to deepen the recognition of those who suffered persecution or violence during the Civil War and the Dictatorship until the entry into force of the 1978 Constitution, and the recovery, safeguarding and dissemination of the Democratic Memory and the vindication of the democratic values and fundamental rights and freedoms throughout our contemporary age, including for the first time the repudiation and condemnation of the military coup of July 1936 and the Franco dictatorship, as well as the declaration of its illegality.
It does so based on the principles of truth, justice, reparation and guarantee of non-repetition, for which our country was required by successive reports from international organizations. Among them, the UN special rapporteur Pablo de Greiff in 2014, who called for public policies in favor of memory and pointed out that "victim assistance is not a matter of partisan policies or political programs, but of principles and rights that concern to all".
The Law seeks, therefore, the recognition and moral, political and legal reparation of the victims and their memory. It has been a conquest of enlightened modernity that there is no justice or dignity without memory and that history cannot be built from the victors, but, as Walter Benjamin pointed out, as the history of the victims and from the victims. Fundamentally of the forgotten ones, those of the Franco regime and the dictatorship, but including all those of the civil war. Juan Sisinio Pérez Garzón stressed in a recent article that the Law includes all the victims of the war, also those who were in Republican territory.
The right has been opposing the new Law with fallacious arguments, which are derived neither from the text, nor from the objectives set out in the Explanatory Memorandum, much less from the actions of the socialists during the dictatorship and the transition. They already did it with Zapatero's Historical Memory Law of 2007 and when they came to the Government in 2012, Rajoy boasted of allocating "0 euros" to its application.
In the debate in the Senate, the representatives of the PP did not make any reference to the content of the Law, but with fiery language they rejected it, denouncing an invented rupture of the consensus on the constitutional pact and the spirit of the transition, including the amnesty, and that it is intended to prosecute crimes until 1983 as a concession to ETA and its heirs. It has even been written that it is an initiative against the socialists and communists who agreed to the transition, which the Spanish Transition Foundation has reiterated.
Socialists contributed decisively to the transition and the 1978 Constitution, one of the most brilliant moments in the history of Spain, even with its limitations. At the same time, we defend democratic memory as the culmination of the reconciliation process undertaken with the transition, which should be completed with the recognition of the victims of Francoism.
It is categorically uncertain that the Democratic Memory Law supposes the rupture of the transition or the constitutional pact, since it highlights and praises them expressly and clearly in its preamble, which states that "The current Constitution was based on a broad social and political commitment … This consensus was the spirit of our political transition, and has been the basis of the era of greatest splendor and prosperity that our country has known.”
But at the same time he points out that "in this framework, Spanish society has a duty to remember the people who were persecuted, imprisoned, tortured and even lost their property and even their own lives in defense of democracy and freedom", because reconciliation did not have and cannot have its roots in oblivion, nor can there be concord without memory.
The Law also highlights the Amnesty Law, "a historic claim by the anti-Francoist opposition", at the same time an expression "of the desire for reconciliation and the construction of an advanced democratic society", for which the ERC or Bildu amendments of total or partial repeal of the Amnesty Law were rejected by the PSOE, as it had previously opposed other parliamentary initiatives that sought its repeal.
Whoever affirms that the new Law breaks with the transition and the Constitutional Pact or has not read it - which undoubtedly occurs in many of its critics - or simply falsifies it. Because the Spanish right has a pending issue: it is still emotionally tied to the Franco regime.
