Assault on the Rule of Law in Spain [Promoted content]

The rule of law in Spain is being hit hard by Pedro Sanchez with his project to pass an unconstitutional amnesty law. 

According to Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union, the Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights. 

No one can dispute that from this article it follows, as a principle common to all European nations, that a democratic State under the rule of law requires a catalog of inalienable and intangible rights, inherent to human beings and a requirement of their dignity, the rule of law – and above all, constitutional law -, and the strict guarantee of the principle of prohibition of arbitrariness of public power, which is ensured by the separation of powers, so that judges and magistrates have the exclusive function of judging, including what the executive and the legislature do.

The rule of law exists, therefore, when it is not the politicians, authorities or parties that dominate, but the laws that rule, and provided that they are general, predetermined, equal for all and permanent rules. 

An amnesty law has a devastating effect on the principle of separation of powers, since the amnesty deprives judges of their function of judging the facts that, at the time of their occurrence, constituted a crime or misdemeanor. At the same time, victims are deprived of their right to effective judicial protection, to have their case heard fairly and publicly and within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial judge established by law. This is stated in Article 47 of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Precisely because of this devastating effect on the separation of powers and the equality of citizens, amnesty laws are only admissible under two cumulative circumstances: that an extraordinary situation exists and that the Constitution provides for this possibility, as an exception to the principle of the rule of law. If the Constitution does not foresee it, the amnesty appears as an arbitrary and antidemocratic act. 

Until a few weeks ago, Pedro Sánchez together with other ministers and socialist leaders had publicly stated on numerous occasions – including during the election campaign – that amnesty for crimes committed by politicians linked to the separatist insurgent movements in Catalonia was not possible because it was contrary to the Constitution, the equality of citizens, the rule of law and respect for judges. However, betraying his word and the Law, with the sole purpose of obtaining the support of 7 deputies among the 350 members of the Spanish Congress, Sánchez has decided to approve an amnesty to benefit a few politicians who support him, violating the Constitution and the trust of millions of Spaniards.

Among the crimes to be amnestied by ordering the judges to archive all investigations, there are crimes of sedition, economic corruption, disobedience to the judicial authority, attack to the authority, injuries, tax fraud, money laundering or even terrorism. 

Spaniards have come out massively to demonstrate in Barcelona, Madrid, Seville, Valencia, Zaragoza and all the capitals. And in an unprecedented democratic movement, thousands of Spaniards demand respect for the Constitution every day without interruption at the gates of the headquarters of Sánchez’s socialist party, in Ferraz street. Ferraz is already a symbol of peaceful and citizen resistance, like Tianammen. 

The international press echoes, likewise, the disproportionate violence that the police units commanded by Sánchez are exercising on the young people who are demanding freedom and respect for the law. The autocratic drift of the new government of Sanchez is extremely dangerous.

It is evident that an amnesty law deprives those of us who saw our rights violated; that is to say, all Spaniards, of the effective protection of a Judge, of the due and just reparation for the crimes committed such as the embezzlement of public funds, the destruction of furniture or social peace and security. 

No one can forget that article 49 of the same European Charter declares the incompatibility of an amnesty law such as the one that Sanchez has sought, with European law; when it states that the retroactivity of criminal laws shall not prevent the trial and punishment of a person guilty of an act or omission which, at the time it was committed, constituted a crime according to the general principles recognized by all nations. And certainly, embezzlement of public funds, money laundering or terrorism are recognized by all democratic and civilized nations.

Millions of Spaniards long for a concrete, precise and decisive response from the Brussels institutions in defense of our Constitution and the Judiciary. For millions of Spaniards see how Spain is treading the bitter path of tyranny in the face of the silence of Brussels. No decent European would understand that the Commission would apply a double standard compared to its repeated homily against the conservative governments of Hungary and Poland; especially when the situation in Spain is incomparably more serious. 

In the cases of Hungary or Poland, all the cases involved laws or government proposals within their respective Constitutions. In this case, as pointed out by the General Council of the Judiciary and all the associations of State civil servants – prosecutors, State lawyers, tax, or social security inspectors, to give examples – the amnesty proposal is manifestly unconstitutional. And the rule of law in Europe is the rule of law in the European nations.

If the European Commission is silent and the European Parliament concedes, any decent Spaniard will deduce without special effort that they are machines at the service of the most ferocious federalism, and that the invocations to the Rule of Law from Brussels are a dead letter.