The King and the Crown are the only institutions of the State to which Pedro Sanchez He has not yet got his hands on it. And Sumar’s pressure, taking advantage of the new “action plan for democracy”, has made him lose his fear. Sumar sources denied this Tuesday the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Courts, Felix Bolanosand they take for granted the agreement with Sánchez to reform the crime of insulting the Crown. A historic claim of a separatism that until now had always been a red line that no one had dared to cross.
The patio of the Congress of Deputies, the space visible from Carrera de San Jerónimo and Zorrilla Street that their lordships use to stretch out and smoke during plenary sessions, was buzzing on Tuesday afternoon. A few hours after the eternal press conference after the Council of Ministers in which Bolaños and Ernest UrtasunMinister of Culture and spokesman for Sumar, tried to justify his attempt to muzzle the media. Several leaders of the party founded by Yolanda Diazcompletely absent, attacked the head of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes for not having defended the supposed agreement they had reached.
It was clear and meridian Enrique SantiagoSumar’s spokesperson in the Justice and Interior Committees, when came to question the abilities of Félix Bolaños. “If you have difficulty verbalizing this type of crime [el delito de injurias] It’s your problem, it is agreed and it will be done“A few hours earlier, at the Moncloa Palace, 1.5 meters away, Minister Urtasun had declared aloud: “I have agreed on this with Bolaños, it will be done.” At the same time, the socialist minister gave journalists a pretext for the plenary session of the Senate, scheduled two hours later, to Run away and avoid typical questions without the journalists’ cameras to have more context.
During the entire press conference that followed the Council of Ministers, which Bolaños took advantage of to detail the plan, without however specifying much about what the plan would be used for or how it would be implemented, the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Courts avoided making explicit reference to the reform of the defamation offence. Although he was questioned up to five times. He always answered that “it affects all the institutions of the State, but we will see that later”. Félix Bolaños, who has also spoken on several occasions of “comprehensive reform of the Penal Code”, a concept that encompasses everything, thus avoided appropriating a demand of the separatist and communist parties that the PSOE had always refused to study.
The new plan
Bolaños, in the press conference that followed the Council of Ministers, put forward some of the 31 measures that the government plans to develop over the next three years in this area. It is a 28-page plan, to which OKDIARIO had access, that Pedro Sánchez developed in response to journalistic information from media such as this one, which led to the indictment of his wife, Begoña Gómez.
Within the framework of the second axis, that of “strengthening the transparency, plurality and responsibility of our media to guarantee truthful information to citizens”, the Executive proposes a “comprehensive reform of the Penal Code” to deal with “offenses of freedom of expression that affect the institutions” of the State and also that occur against religious sentiments.
According to the minister, the objective is to adapt the Spanish Penal Code “to European Union law” and to adjust it, with regard to these crimes, “to the latest jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights.” same argument that the socialists used at the time to justify the repeal of the crime of sedition. Bolaños, in 2022, declared that the type of crime that allowed those responsible for the crime to be convicted was repealed. process “harmonize” the Spanish Penal Code with the European code. Even if the reality was very different from what Moncloa wanted to project. Everything was, as today, to stay in power.
Asked specifically whether crimes and insults to the Crown will be included, the head of Justice referred to the “evolution” of the law that is approved, without wanting to say whether he is in favor of eliminating these crimes. Everything is left to the parliamentary procedure, which will have to be developed in the coming months in the Congress of Deputies. “What will really be important will be the bill that will be approved by the Council of Ministers when we do so and that will then have sufficient parliamentary support to modify the Penal Code in this case,” he said.
In Sumar, they cling to the fact that there have been rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, in the past, that refer to the alleged “problems” that Spain has regarding the guarantee of freedom of expression and in some of them, insults are expressly mentioned to the Crown. Therefore, they indicate, the entire government is willing to address this reform. Although Bolaños has a hard time acknowledging it. Or even denying it.as before with amnesty or singular financing. The same day that Moncloa presented its ambitious plan of democratic regeneration and disinformation to “improve our democracy.”
