The proposed Spanish legislation to grant an amnesty for Catalan independence process prosecutions has reached one of the key dates in its parliamentary journey. This Tuesday the full Congress will debate the text that came out of the justice committee stage, and will have to give the green light to the bill in a final vote that requires an absolute majority. If approved, it will be sent on to the Senate. On the table, there remain to be considered two options for text changes which Together for Catalonia (Junts) and the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) are proposing: both are transactional amendments - the name given to compromise texts combining several proposals - one bringing together ideas of the two pro-independence parties, while the other is between Junts and the Basque Nationalists (PNV). The main stumbling block remains the article relating to terrorism, which is in doubt given the latest manoeuvres by judge Manuel García-Castellón attempting to shut out Carles Puigdemont from the amnesty. Faced with this scenario, Junts sources assure that they do not rule out voting against the committee's opinion. This refusal would not imply the definitive rejection of the bill, but rather, the return of the text to the justice committee, which would have a month to pronounce again. This would give further time for negotiation and allow the text to be tweaked with new transactional amendments. Despite this, the Junts MPs undertake to continue negotiating until the last minute and are confident of reaching an agreement.
For its part, ERC also has the door open until the "last moment" for improvements to the text, while the Socialists (PSOE) consider the draft of the law closed for now (the Socialists admit that "there is time" to negotiate with Junts and ERC, but assure that they are "comfortable" with the current text).
Transactional amendments removing the terrorism references
Sources within Junts state that the party would favour one of the two transactional agreements that they signed with ERC and the PNV, both of which eliminate the explicit reference to "terrorism". The agreement with ERC takes a middle line between the transactional amendment with the PSOE already approved in the justice committee and the full elimination of any mention of terrorism. The two pro-independence parties seek to delete the mention of terrorism while maintaining the exclusion from amnesty coverage (as agreed with the Socialists) of actions that have, "manifestly and with direct intent", caused "serious violations of human rights", in particular, those foreseen in Articles 2 and 3 (referring to the right to life and prohibition of torture) of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and in international humanitarian law. On the other hand, the agreement with the PNV directly deletes the references to terrorism and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Be that as it may, the plenary session of Congress will be held this Tuesday, January 30, from 3pm in the lower house. If the text is not passed by the required absolute majority, the initiative will return to the justice committee, while a green light will see it sent to the Senate, which can retain the bill for two months and propose changes but is unable to veto the bill, which would inevitably then return to Congress for final validation - most likely of the same text as approved by the lower house.