The PSOE has submitted to the Congress of Deputies a bill to reform the law regulating the right of association, which will facilitate the dissolution of entities such as the Francisco Franco National Foundation and all those who oppose the Democratic Memory Acta procedure that can be initiated at the request of the state attorney general’s office and be finalized only by a judicial resolution.
A few months ago, the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun (a member of Sumar and not of the PSOE), announced that his department had begun the procedures to extinguish said entity, under the protection of the Democratic Memory Law.
Today, five years after the exhumation of the dictator, the Socialist Party intends, with this initiative, to add an additional provision to the law regulating the right of association to explicitly include as a cause for dissolution of a foundation “the fact of carrying out activities that constitute Apology for Francoism“.
What is considered an apology?
According to the text presented by the socialists, all these actions that “praise the Franco regime” will be an apology for Francoism. coup d’état and dictatorship or exalt their leaders, with contempt and humiliation of dignity of victimsor directly or indirectly incite hatred or violence against them because of their status as such.
The interpretation of what supposed apologies, exaltation or humiliation a citizen may commit is left to the judgment of the State Attorney General’s Office – one of the many public institutions “colonized” by the government – and, ultimately, to the courts.
This provision specifies that the dissolution of an entity must be carried out by court decision and that it will be up to the public prosecutor’s office “to exercise its action in this type of procedure”.
Furthermore, the PSOE bill specifies that the reason for dissolution will be applied regardless of the theoretical goals and activities set out in the statutes.and whether or not the association has fulfilled the registration obligation, since in our legal system, associations acquire legal personality and full capacity to act upon signing the constitutive act, registration being provided for publicity purposes only.
