If someone had handwritten the number of times the words Constitution, constitutional or unconstitutional, were repeated in the Senate that Tuesday, they could have filled pages. Allegations of violations of the Magna Carta, raised from one bank to another, dominated the entire debate on the reform of the Rules of the House of Lords that took place this Tuesday. The plenary session, with the absolute majority of the PP, with 147 votes in favor and 133 against, implemented the amendment proposed by the population to delay the processing of the legislative proposals of the political groups, which the Congress considered urgent. With this explicitly decided change, the People’s Party wants to torpedo the parliamentary path of the future amnesty law, which the Socialists classified as urgent this Monday. During the debate, senators from the left-wing bloc accused the People’s Party of violating the Magna Carta with this reform. The PSOE has gone a step further and announced that it will appeal against the change to the Constitutional Court, relying on the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court reflected in its judgment 97/2002. In contrast, the right has accused the socialists of violating what they say is the constitution with the level of leniency for those persecuted through the process.
The regulatory change approved this Tuesday involves the reformulation of Article 133 of the Regulation. In this way, when the amnesty law proposal arrives in the upper house, senators will have up to two months – instead of the previously planned 20 days – to process it and then send it back to Congress, which can then finally ratify it, albeit later. . During this additional deadline, which it managed this Tuesday, the People’s Party intends to bring professors, experts and jurists who support its rejection of the clemency measure to the Senate committees to strengthen its arguments from its fortress in the upper house, where they have an absolute majority, additionally including opinions and studies.
They also plan to request a report from the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), which has a conservative majority and whose mandate under the Organic Law of the Judiciary (LOPJ) has expired for almost five years. According to popular sources in the Upper House, there was no way the PP could stop the processing of the initiative at the Senate table, although members of the party leadership have indicated that they could make this decision when the text is received by the Congress, which is scheduled for February.
“How urgent is it that we all gather here today.” Violating the Constitution in an extraordinary plenary session? Return to the Constitution! – said Senator Enric
– Some initiative from yesterday [este lunes] presented has undertones of unconstitutionality. “It is worth talking about a breach of the constitution now, given what we see today,” said PP spokesman Eloy Suárez ironically, referring to the future amnesty law.
The bloc that supports the inauguration of Pedro Sánchez has insisted that the PP reform represents a partisan instrumentalization of the Senate and violates Article 90.3 of the Constitution, which states: “The two-month period during which the Senate can exercise its veto or can change the project, will be shortened to twenty calendar days for projects that are declared urgent by the government or the Congress of Deputies.” According to judgment 97/2002 of the Higher Regional Court, when talking about “legislative projects” classified as urgent, the Magna Carta also refers to the legislative proposals of the political groups, but these are not explicitly mentioned and justify this primacy of the Congress when it comes to qualifying a standard, reminded the PNV spokeswoman Estefanía Beltrán from the lectern.
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– This is a regulatory and unconstitutional reform. We will exercise our right to seek protection from the Constitutional Court,” warned Socialist Senator Manuel Fajardo.
– They intend to change the constitution by introducing a perfect bicameral system. The doctrine is clear about congressional supremacy. What is the problem? The amnesty – added ERC Senator Josep Maria Reniu.
Thus, the PP has carried out “parliamentary filibustering” towards the groups that voted against the reform – as Junts Senator Josep Lluís Cleries has suggested – with the sole aim of hindering the implementation of the negotiated amnesty law by the Socialists, the Catalan independence forces are demanding Sánchez’s inauguration. “What the socialist group is doing with this is politics writ large.” “We are conducting an absolutely democratic negotiation,” explained Cleries. The extension of the amnesty would delay the return of his party leader Carles Puigdemont to Spain without an arrest warrant.
—You say a sentence [del Tribunal Constitucional] which is irrelevant, like that cited in the amnesty law. What was unconstitutional until two months ago is now clearly constitutional for you. Why can you make an explicit language use change in Congress in one day and that reform can’t be done here? – continued the popular Senator Eloy Suárez.
For the PP, the proposed reform “improves the democratic quality” and gives the Senate more opportunities to improve parliamentary initiatives of the Congress, thus avoiding “bad experiences” such as the drafting of the “only yes is yes” law, as Suárez did has defended – and thereby underlines its function as a chamber with double reading. However, this change had not been proposed until the amnesty law was promoted.
In addition to reforming Article 133, the PP introduced two last-minute amendments to its own proposal to amend Article 182 of the Regulation to require the President of the Government and ministers to appear in the plenary sessions of the Upper House when required . Until now, only appearing on commissions was mandatory. In this sense, the People’s Party criticized the members of the incumbent executive for not attending the plenary session last week, which was attended only by ministers who were asked questions in the control session. The PSOE replied that its presence was not regulated in the regulations. Therefore, this change was introduced a posteriori.
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