The Constitutional Court has decided to admit for processing the question of unconstitutionality that the Supreme Court raised against the amnesty law. This is the first challenge to the rule that the Court of Guarantees admits to be pending while waiting to study the dozen appeals filed by the regional administrations governed, above all, by the Popular Party, in which three progressive magistrates of the Popular Party have been filed. complete.
He also accepted that Juan Carlos Campo withdraw from the deliberations and urged the Supreme Court to paralyze the amnesty “process” until it rules on the merits of the case, which will not happen in any case for six months. The presentation of this question of unconstitutionality was left in the hands of conservative magistrate Ricardo Enríquez.
The Constitutional Court will therefore study the harsh allegations made by the Supreme Court regarding the first article of the amnesty law approved a few months ago in Congress: the article that includes all the alleged crimes related to the process that are covered by the norm. pardon. A document in which the Criminal Chamber, contrary to what it did in its judgment, describes for the first time the 2017 independence process as a “coup d’état” and the accused as “putschists.”
The department headed by Manuel Marchena called the amnesty law “blatant discrimination” that benefits defendants based on their “political opinions.” “This establishes an inequality of treatment based on ideology,” it said in another resolution on the amnesty.
Challenges and abstentions in amnesty
The Constitutional Court has several appeals and challenges against the amnesty law on the table. In addition to the question of unconstitutionality of the Supreme Court that has just been admitted for processing, there is also the appeal presented by the PP, which will be analyzed at the end of the month for the same procedure and with Judge José María Macías as rapporteur. The appeal filed by Aragon, one of the regional administrations governed by the PP that announced the judicial measure, is not yet on the agenda and the speaker will be Judge Laura Díez.
The possible challenges and abstentions, as well as the arithmetic resulting from these debates, were one of the key points of the first deliberations on the amnesty law and its journey before the Constitutional Court. In addition to the abstention presented by Juan Carlos Campo, the magistrates must analyze those presented by the PP in its appeal against the president of the court, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, and the magistrate Laura Díez, rapporteur of the appeal of the Aragonese government. of Jorge Azcon. In total, ten appeals against the amnesty were registered and their presentations were distributed throughout the plenary session.
At present, and after the incorporation of Macías, the court has seven progressive judges and five conservatives. The voluntary absence of former Minister Campo in these deliberations leaves the progressive sector with more money in relation to the appeals presented by the amnesty law.
