The president of the CGPJ joins the unconstitutionality of the amnesty: “It cannot be a bargaining chip for a parliamentary majority” | EUROtoday

The president of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), Vicente Guilartegave explanations this Monday about his resolution to abstain from voting on a report on the Amnesty Law, addressed by the Plenary final week.

His 10 sheets of reasoning are summarized in two: that he abstained to supply a sure picture of neutrality and that the amnesty agreed by Junts and the PSOE is unconstitutional.

Guilarte thus reaches the identical conclusion as nearly all of the CGPJ, which supported the report opposite to the invoice by 9 votes to 5. But he does it another way, approaching it as if it had been a contract between the 2 formations. He explains it by the truth that Guilarte is a professor of Civil regulationa department of whose phrases the reason of the vote is riddled.

The member, president by substitute after a succession of resignations and retirements, objects to the constitutionality of the amnesty for 2 causes. The first, that the essence of the measure of grace is that it’s free, not onerous. And on this case it isn’t, as a result of it’s granted in change for the votes for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez.

An distinctive case

“Unlike many amnesty laws we have known, the one in question is not a mere measure of grace granted unilaterally by the Legislative Branch but has political counterparts of great relevance in charge of those eligible for amnesty. […] There are no precedents, neither in Spain nor in the rest of the nations that have agreed to similar grace measures, where the amnesty has been inserted in a transaction […] with mutual benefits,” says Guilarte.

And he considers that one thing like this isn’t attainable: “It cannot be arbitrated in exchange for any onerous consideration because that would radically distort its cause, going, in civil terminology, from gratuitousness to an onerousness that blurs its essential nature as a measure of grace. […] The amnesty cannot be […] currency of achieving a parliamentary majority for the investiture since it implies converting the measure of grace, by definition unilateral and free, into something bilateral and onerous.

The second objection raised by the unconstitutional norm is that the political pact on which it is based includes an unacceptable review of the actions of judges, supposedly responsible for cases of lawfare that the independence movement wields.

‘Lawfare’

“There is a facet of the agreed consideration, to be built-in by the PSOE – immediately with an evident identification with the Government – within the signed political settlement that can’t be assumed from a perspective of contractual legality nor constitutionality as it’s flagrantly opposite to the precept of autonomy. and judicial independence in addition to the mandatory separation of powers. This is the purpose, which is a part of Agreement 3 beforehand transcribed, referring to the existence of investigative commissions,” explains the president of the CGPJ.

He adds that this obligation assumed by the PSOE “apparently persists”, as indicated by the creation of the commissions. “Such continuity, if true, fatally results in the novel nullity of the pact and, from a constitutional perspective, if it kinds an inseparable half with the supply of the amnesty regulation, it could undoubtedly result in the unconstitutionality of the unitarily dedicated profit.”

In the Plenary vote, Guilarte abstained, and this Monday he explained why: “With my clean vote I’ve tried, going through the surface world, to supply a impartial place as a result of, whether or not we prefer it or not, the constitutionality strategy undoubtedly has sturdy connotations. insurance policies to which we should always attempt to be oblivious. I assume the dangers of not satisfying some and others, particularly some.”