The parliamentary groups of Together for Catalonia (Junts) and the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) in Spain's Congress of Deputies have this Friday presented individual requests for the creation of two commissions of inquiry that open the door to investigate lawfare-related issues from the parliamentary chamber. These are the proposals to create, on the one hand, a commission on Operation Catalonia and, on the other, an inquiry into the 2017 Jihadist terror attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils. Lawfare - the illicit use of the justice system to repress a political opponent - is a concept that does not appear explicitly in the proposal of the amnesty law that the Socialists (PSOE) registered last week, but, on the other hand, it does appear in the agreement that Junts and PSOE signed in Brussels to make possible the investiture of Pedro Sánchez.
Lawfare had been the stumbling block that for days bogged down Junts's negotiations with the Socialists for the investiture. The agreement reached with the PSOE specifies that the conclusions of the commissions of inquiry to set up in this new legislature will "be taken into account with the application of the amnesty law" in as much as they expose situations that correspond to lawfare or the judicialization of politics. As a result, says the pact, this may give rise to "actions of responsibility or legislative changes". The registration of the two requests on the same day that Pedro Sánchez took the promise of allegiance in front of king Felipe VI indicates the will of Junts to avoid leaving space for the Socialists to delay the fulfillment of this agreement. Junts already gave warnings during the investiture debate.
Examine the pursuit of "political dissent"
The request for the creation of the Operation Catalonia commission specifies, among its objectives, to investigate "all those initiatives that could have been carried out by the institutions of the state" in order to "pursue political dissidence". Likewise, it will also propose "restitution and compensation measures for all people affected by the irregular or illegal investigation". Through the use of this parliamentary space, Junts and the PNV want to propose "timely measures of control, investigation and prevention to shield democracy from abuses and misuses by certain powers and services of the state, against the full exercise of civil and political rights".
The references to lawfare in the text of the agreement between Junts and PSOE have raised the alarm among the Spanish judiciary. Some judicial sectors, including the General Council of the Judiciary, have made protests against these references, understanding that the principle of separation of powers is violated by them. In recent weeks there have been demonstrations against the Junts pact with the PSOE by judges and prosecutors, parallel to the far-right protests in the street.