The conflict between the Senate and Congress over the law that benefits more than 40 ETA prisoners will end up before the Constitutional Court, as warned Pedro Rollan has Francine Armengol in a profession to which this newspaper had access.
The clash between the two chambers is based on the fact that the President of the Senate considered the norm “vetoed”, after having rejected it by an absolute majority during the extraordinary plenary session on Monday, and that the Congress disdained this communication because it was “out of time” and passed the law to approve it.
The presidency of the Senate supported its constitutional interpretation in a 12-page report from his lawyersprepared between Tuesday and Friday of last week. The opinion based its criteria on the lack of precedents and in “the prevalence of fundamental right of political representation» versus “regulatory rigor”.
Congress, for its part, was content with a few “verbal recommendations” from its legal services, drawn up between Monday afternoon and early Tuesday. According to informed sources, the senior counsel of the Lower House, Fernando Galindosimply nodded at the Lower House board meeting when Armengol and Rafael SimancasSecretary of State for Relations with Justice, rejected the Senate’s interpretation.
In his writings this Wednesday, the President of the Senate accuses the President of Congress of “invading regulatory and organizational autonomy” of the Upper House and to act “frivolously” and “legally unmotivated and arbitrary”.
He is also surprised by certain decisions which, according to him, seem to have been taken to the dictation of “instructions” from the Governmentwho is intolerable in democracy.”
Rollán’s letter responded to another from Armengol, sent Tuesday afternoon and with seal of entry to the Upper House number 27,535at 9:30 a.m. this Wednesday. Communication dispatches in just a paragraph all the legal arguments of Congress to reject the much more verbose one of the Senate.
And in his 18-page response, with Senate exit stamp number 7,433 and on this same Wednesday, the popular Rollán addresses the socialist Armengol in very harsh terms. And he demands that “as long as the Constitutional Court rulesestablishing a new case law which provides a solution to the specific case, unpublished until now”, convene a plenary session of Congress to debate and vote again on the law “vetoed by the Senate”.
“I implore you,” Rollán insists, “to defend the normative and regulatory autonomy of the Upper House“, fundamental rights at stake and respect for the general will expressed by the plenary of the Senate”, Armengol addresses the “frontal and global” rejection of the law by the Senate.
That is to say that requires Congress to comply with “Section 90.2 of the Constitution”which provides that “the project cannot be submitted for the King’s sanction without Congress ratifying by an absolute majority, in the event of a veto, the initial text, or by a simple majority, two months after its introduction”. “.
Use words like “incomprehensible” and “surprising”the President of the Senate firmly despises the decision of the Congressional Council to send the law to the Official State Gazette instead of including it on next week’s agenda during the plenary session of the Lower House. Furthermore, this resolution “was not supported by any report from the legal services”, Rollán therefore considers that an issue of “unquestionable importance” was “dispatched inconsistently”.
Appeal and precautionary measures
The problem mentioned above is that, if an appeal for unconstitutionality accompanied by accepted precautionary measures does not prevent it, the law would already be on the table of King Felipe VI to be sanctioned and will come into force 20 days after its publication in the BOE.
“SO, It will be irreversible if ETA members leave prison sooner” warns a PP source, “because in criminal matters, the most advantageous criterion always operates for the prisoner… as happened with violators of the Only yes it’s yes“.
And it is because the socialist Armengol declared it definitively this Tuesday contrary to what the popular Rollán supports. The Senate accuses Congress of “manifest excess of competence” in this communication and warns you that The one qualified to decide whether the Upper House vetoed this norm is the Constitutional Court. (TC).
“With all due respect, it is not for the Congress Council to decide whether the result of the vote during the plenary session on October 14 in the hemicycle over which I preside can and must have the legal effect of “a veto, but rather the Constitutional Court”, warns the President of the Senate.
Likewise, the President of the Senate expresses his “surprise” at the speed of decision-making by the Congressional Council, criticizing that It wasn’t even “on the agenda.” of this Tuesday’s meeting.
Rollán also criticizes that the decision of the Congressional Council “was practically simultaneous” with the announcement during the Council meeting of the Senate spokesperson, “also unusual for its meaning ultra vires of its field of competence”, by Simancas, Secretary of State in charge of relations with the Cortes, who The Government did not consider the absolute majority rejection as a “veto” which occurred in the plenary session of the Senate.
“The government does not have the authority to make this type of assessment. in a matter which concerns only the regulatory autonomy of the Senate; nor to give instructions which, at least, in my opinion, give the impression of being immediately carried out by the Council of Congress. It is about an unfortunate confusion between the powers of the State which is absolutely intolerable in a democracy,” adds Rollán.
