After more than a month of work, the first reports on the amnesty law begin to circulate with which the Catalan crisis since 2012/2013 can be wiped clean and thus achieve a new investiture of Pedro Sánchez as President of the goverment. Sumar has already sent his text to the independence supporters as a starting point for negotiations that could end in a bill in the Congress of Deputies.
Several sides are being played in this matter. The leader of Sumar has wanted to lead this matter from the beginning, forming a team of jurists to present her own proposal and going to Brussels to hold a meeting with the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont, one of the main beneficiaries of this possible law of amnesty.
Parliamentary sources clarify that Sumar's proposal is totally independent of the work that the PSOE may be doing on its own. However, these sources explain that Díaz's idea is that a joint proposal can be presented. In fact, as soon as he learned of Díaz's proposal, the acting Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, came out publicly to say that it is "respectable" but it is not the proposal of the socialists.
Those from Sumar have proposed to the Catalan independentists that the amnesty be expansive and benefit all those who have had any judicial process opened in the last decade linked to the process. This includes the police officers - approximately fifty - with criminal cases for confrontations with voters during the referendum of October 1, 2017 and in subsequent moments.
According to these sources, the message that is conveyed from the pro-independence ranks is that the police officers could not benefit from the amnesty because in their opinion they went against the victims of the process, who are the pro-independence supporters themselves.
Another obstacle would come in here: 'Operation Catalunya'. If an amnesty is made to wipe the slate clean, that includes putting aside any suspicion that the State has persecuted pro-independence leaders. For now, no investigation has been opened by the National Court for an alleged assignment to the controversial former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo to expose 'dirty laundry' to Catalan independence leaders. However, attempts have been made to file complaints in some courts against senior police officers and politicians.
What would not be within this framework, for the jurists who have worked to prepare the Sumar report, are those businessmen, or even the Pujol family, who have open cases for political or economic corruption, although they feel they are victims of the so-called ' State sewers.
With this same thesis, the former president of the Parliament Laura Borràs would be excluded from the amnesty, despite the fact that a part of Junts insists that as a victim of the State she must be included. The independence leader was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for favoring a friend of hers with public contracts when she directed the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes.
Although the Sumar report does not establish an exact number of people who could benefit, sources close to the preparation of the report suggest that it could reach 1,400 people, a figure that was already included in an Òmnium Cultural report. Among the main beneficiaries would be Puigdemont and the other former councilors prosecuted by 1-O who have not yet been prosecuted, such as Toni Comin, Clara Ponsati and Lluis Puig, in addition to the number 2 of ERC Marta Rovira, who has a pending process for disobedience .
One of the keys to the amnesty will be the cases of the Court of Accounts, pending the trials for 1-O and the foreign action of the Generalitat, for which 3.4 million euros are claimed for the improper use of Catalan public funds .
Other leaders pending trial are the republicans Josep Maria Jové, Lluís Salvadó and Natàlia Garriga. The three were senior officials of the Vice Presidency Department in 2017, when this portfolio was led by the president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras. The Prosecutor's Office believes that they were the organizers of the 1-O referendum despite warnings from the Constitutional Court and Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia that it could not be held because it was illegal.
The trials of the former CUP leader Anna Gabriel and the former councilor Meritxell Serret are also pending, as well as the members of the Referendum Electoral Syndicate accused of having collaborated with the organization of 1 -O. And added to this are the dozens of people with pending issues due to the mobilizations linked to the process.
Of the amount that is estimated that could be amnestied, it is not only that those who have pending cases be released but that the convictions of those already prosecuted be eliminated and their criminal records as well as any pending disqualifications cleared.
Both Sumar and the independentistas agree that the bill that must be approved must also include all those who have open cases for public disorders, such as people related to the CDR.
However, there is a problem that is 'Operation Judas', the case opened in the National Court for terrorism. These sources point out that the limit of the amnesty is set by international humanitarian law, that is, that crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity or torture could not be granted amnesty. They find it difficult to include terrorism crimes in the amnesty because it is "difficult to sell" to public opinion.
One option for these twelve defendants is for the Prosecutor's Office to modify the crime of terrorism to another less serious one. However, in the case that Judge Manuel García Castellón has investigated there are popular accusations so the Court could maintain, if it so considers, the crime of terrorism and take them to trial.
