Three weeks after being approved by Spain’s parliament, an amnesty law for Catalan separatists involved in the failed 2017 secession attempt remains embroiled in legal disputes and has yet to benefit anyone.
Judges have two months to enforce the law after it received final approval on May 30. The law is expected to affect about 400 people, including Carles Puigdemont, the former head of Catalonia’s regional government.
It was aimed at cancelling arrest warrants and criminal charges filed against separatists while appeals against the amnesty law are heard in higher courts — a process that can take years.
But courts must decide whether to enforce amnesties on a case-by-case basis, a laborious process that takes time.
“Political leaders and lawmakers are experts in making laws, but jurists are experts in applying them,” Alfons López Tena, a jurist and former pro-independence lawmaker in Catalonia’s regional parliament, wrote in a recent article published on the legal news website Confilegal.
He added that if a judge “believes that a law or any of its articles violates European law, he or she can independently decide not to apply it, without the need for an appeal or preliminary question.”
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who had opposed the law in the past, agreed to the amnesty in exchange for support from Catalan separatist parties in parliament.
This support was necessary for him to be reappointed for another four-year term after the inconclusive general election in July 2023.
political crisis
The most high-profile beneficiary of the amnesty is likely to be Puigdemont, who fled Spain shortly after the independence bid and now splits his time between Belgium and France.
While Puigdemont was Catalan regional leader, his administration held an independence referendum on 1 October 2017, despite a ban by Spanish courts.
Several weeks later, the Catalan parliament made a symbolic declaration of independence, prompting the central government to impose direct rule on the region.
These events sparked the biggest political crisis in Spain since the advent of democracy following the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.
Puigdemont had said he hoped to return to Spain soon, but there is still a warrant out for his arrest and a Spanish court is still investigating him for alleged crimes of embezzlement and insubordination related to the secession attempt.
He is also still under investigation for alleged terrorism offences over protests in 2019 against the jailing of several separatist leaders involved in the referendum, which at times turned violent.
The judges have ruled that the arrest warrants will remain in force until any doubts about the validity of the amnesty law are resolved by higher courts.
‘Legal thrillers’
There is also no consensus on whether the amnesty will cover embezzlement – a key crime linked to secession efforts.
The issue is one of interpretation. According to the law, amnesty can be applied if the money was used to finance the pro-independence process, but not if the money was taken for personal gain.
Spain’s chief prosecutor, Álvaro García Ortiz, argues that the amnesty applies to all crimes, including embezzlement, but the four prosecutors handling Puigdemont’s case disagree.
The prosecutor’s office decided on Tuesday with a vote of 19 in favor and 17 against García Ortiz.
But the judges’ decision will be final as the amnesty law specifies that they will decide “its application in each specific case.”
Catalan separatists see the delay in implementing the amnesty as unfair and are growing impatient.
Puigdemont’s lawyer, Gonzalo Boyle, has sent a letter to the Court of Auditors (the body that verifies public expenditure), requesting that it drop the procedure against Puigdemont “without further delay or legal complications” regarding funds the regional Catalan government allegedly used for the secession attempt.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
