He Supreme Court confirms the non-application of amnesty to the offense of embezzlement of those found guilty at the origin of the trial. This Monday, the Criminal Chamber rejected the appeals filed by the prosecution, the prosecution and several defendants against the order in which it concluded that this crime was excluded from the amnesty law.
Thus, he recalls that the convicts committed an embezzlement in which average personal benefit of a heritage nature, expressly excluded from the scope of the amnesty. The High Court thus rejects the appeals of Oriol Junqueras,Raül Romeva, Dolors Bassa and Jordi Turull. At the same time, he also rejects Vox’s appeal, which considered that disobedience was also excluded from amnesty.
The Chamber which issued this new order is composed of magistrates Manuel Marchena -president and speaker-, Andrés Martínez Arrieta, Juan Ramón Berdugo, Antonio del Moral, Andrés Palomo and Ana Ferrer. The latter judge, however, issued a dissenting vote with the decision.
“Political will is not enough to amnesty an event”
This new order from the Supreme Court responds to the defenses’ request that the Chamber limit itself to complying with the legislative desire to pardon the facts for which the appellants were convicted. In this sense, the ordinance maintains that “the interpretation of the precepts” which led it to exclude from the amnesty the offense of embezzlement “requires attention not only to what the appellants now say, that the legislator wanted to amnestybut to what the standard actually proclaims “a legal system by which it seeks to enforce pardons on those convicted.”
“Between the political will which determines a legislative change and the normative declarations with which this change is supposed to be carried out, a logical and coherent link is essential and complies with the elementary requirements of legal technique”, continues the order which specifies: “ The request of this House to interpret the amnesty law without any other reference than that provided for by the will of the legislator is demand that we renounce our role as judges“.
““Political will is not enough to amnesty an event.”warns the order, which emphasizes that “it is necessary that the legal text which translates this ideology defines its objective scope with the reinforced precision which is required of a norm which will produce such radical effects on the structural principles of the penal process . “
“Laws cannot be interpreted as a verbal mandate sent by the political power to judges“, underline the magistrates, who insist on the fact that legal texts “contain a mandate which is inserted in their own letter”, where “the will of the legislator is nothing other than the language and legal concepts through which he wanted to materialize his objective.
“Therefore, the rule of law can only be guaranteed once the published legal text is subjected to careful scrutiny.” judicial interpretation verified in accordance with the hermeneutical orientations which define the canon of rationality imposed by the constitutional duty of motivation”, continues the text, which affirms that “the image of judge like a “mute mouth” which must limit its function to proclaiming the legal consequences which arise from the literality of the norm represents a outdated image which the appellants now present as the democratic ideal of a justice respectful of the legislative power”.
“The terms in which the amnesty law was published they do not degrade this House to the status of a simple vehicle formal for an algorithmic response, foreign to the argumentative habit which governs its deliberations”, decides the Chamber, adding that “the mechanical applicability of the law” does not adapt “to ‘justice’ as the superior value of the legal system “.
