If the PSOE will use the absolute majority it has with its parliamentary partners to approve the amnesty law in Congress, the PP will use its majority in the Senate to delay it as much as possible, although it cannot prevent its approval. It is not just a matter of rejecting it in the Upper House, which it will do, which will mean that Congress will have to lift the veto, but that the popular ones have decided to initiate a reform of the Regulations to delay its approval as much as possible, even three months. since it is approved in the Lower House.
The reform aims to give the Senate Board, controlled by the PP, the power to process law proposals urgently or in an ordinary manner even if they come from Congress urgently, so instead of 20 days to process the norm , the Senate could do it in two months, which would lead to the approval of the amnesty and therefore its entry into force at the end of March, taking into account that January is a parliamentary non-working month.
The president of the Upper House, Pedro Rollán, already warned this morning that the parliamentary processing of the amnesty would not be a bed of roses. The popular man assured on Antena 3 that his group in the Upper House, which has an absolute majority, was not going to facilitate the processing of the amnesty law, because "that would result in having first-class Spaniards and having second-class Spaniards."
When he spoke these words, a proposal to reform the Regulations had already been registered in the Senate, as the PP did on Tuesday afternoon, by which law proposals, unlike bills - these must be processed as they arrive of Congress by constitutional mandate -, will not have a period of 20 days to be processed, but rather it is the Board of the Chamber that will determine the urgency, at the request of the Government or Congress.
With this reform, what the PP will achieve is that the bill, once it reaches the Senate, can be processed as a normal law, instead of doing so with the urgency with which it will surely be debated in Congress, which Taking into account the absolute majority of the PP on the Senate Board, its approval may be delayed until spring or longer.
Article 106 of the Senate Regulations establishes that "The Chamber has a period of two months, from the day of receipt of the text, to expressly approve it or, by means of a reasoned message, to oppose its veto or introduce amendments to it", in accordance with the deadlines established in the Constitution. A period, which is "understood to refer" to the ordinary period of sessions, and in the event that it concludes outside of this period, the necessary days of the following period will be computed until the two-month period is completed.
What the reform of the Regulations presented by the PP modifies is not that normal deadline, but rather the one that refers to the initiatives processed by the emergency procedure, as the signatories of the amnesty bill will most likely request in the Lower House. Until now, the Regulations equalized the automaticity of the declaration of urgency to bills, that is, those sent by the Government, to law proposals, which originate from parliamentary groups. According to the Constitution, then the processing period is 20 days.
However, according to the explanatory memorandum of the PP reform, article 90 of the Constitution refers only to bills, although until now the law proposals followed the same procedure. But literally, the Constitution establishes those 20 days only for draft ordinary or organic laws.
The specific reform sought is that of article 133 of the Senate Regulations, in order to attribute to the Chamber Board the power to decide in each case on the relevance of urgent processing of a bill, whether it has been requested. or not the Government or Congress.
Specifically, article 133 of the regulations will establish that "in bills declared urgent by the Government or by the Congress of Deputies, the Senate has a period of twenty calendar days to exercise its legislative powers", and that "The Senate Bureau, ex officio or on the proposal of a parliamentary group or twenty-five Senators, may decide to apply the emergency procedure."
But in "law proposals, the Senate Board may decide to apply the emergency procedure when requested by the Government or the Congress of Deputies, or also acting ex officio or at the proposal of a parliamentary group or twenty-five Senators."
Thus, if the signatories of the amnesty bill ask for urgency in Congress, which they will do, even requesting that it be processed urgently and in a single reading, which will mean that it can be approved before the end of the year, when When it reaches the Senate, the Senate Board will be the one who decides whether it is urgently processed or not, and the PP will say no.
Then the two-month period will begin, but since January is a non-working day, the processing will most likely not begin until January, and the popular ones will be in charge of delaying its processing as much as possible, until rejecting it, which will mean that it will have to return to Congress for its approval. final approval.
