On Tuesday Spain’s constitutional court will start debating the legality of an amnesty law, the country’s most divisive piece of legislation of recent decades. The ruling is expected to settle a fierce public argument over the law’s technical soundness, although it is unlikely to calm political tensions surrounding it.
The amnesty law of 2024 sought to withdraw pending legal action against Catalan political leaders who had made a failed secession attempt from Spain in 2017, as well as hundreds of activists who had supported the same cause. The most high-profile intended beneficiary was former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who has been living in self-imposed exile in Belgium.
The law secured for the Socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez the support of Catalan nationalists to keep his left-wing coalition government afloat. He points to the improved political climate in Catalonia, where independence is no longer a live issue, as proof that the policy of engagement has paid dividends.
However, the law has also been at the heart of attacks on Sánchez by the opposition, which has cast it as a legally unsound, cynical ploy by the prime minister to stay in power.
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The constitutional court will now consider an appeal lodged against the law by the opposition conservative People’s Party (PP). The stridently unionist PP alleged that the legislation breached the constitution by being an arbitrary measure that was the result of a dubious political transaction. The tribunal’s ruling is expected later this month, although leaks from a preliminary report it has published in advance of the debate strongly suggest it will reject such objections and broadly endorse the law, while introducing some minor changes.
“The interpretation [of the law] made by the People’s Party is incompatible with a constitution that is open, inherent to the democratic state and political pluralism,” reads the leaked document. It adds that the legislature “can do anything that is not explicitly prohibited by the constitution”, which is the case with the amnesty.
The report also dismisses the PP’s claim that the political backdrop to the legislation undermined its legitimacy.
Oriol Junqueras, leader of the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), who remains barred from public office as he waits to be amnestied, described the development as “another step along a path that is always too long”. He spent three years and eight months in jail for his part in the events of 2017, before being released on a government pardon.
The government has also cautiously welcomed this news. Digital transformation minister Óscar López said the administration has always known the amnesty was constitutional and that it “has helped to normalise political life in Catalonia”.
Culture minister Ernest Urtasun went further, describing the leaked report as “good news which reaffirms the government’s policy in the face of the judicialisation of [the Catalan] conflict and debunks the lies of the right and the PP”.
Since its approval almost a year ago, 178 Catalans have been amnestied on the case-by-case basis outlined by the law, according to a study commissioned by the civic organisation Omnium Cultural. Another 49 pending cases have been dismissed and nine defendants absolved. Many of those facing legal action were civil servants who had helped the Catalan regional government stage an illegal independence referendum in October 2017.
However, the same report also found that 158 amnesty requests had been rejected, indefinitely postponed, or simply had not been answered.
But while the strict legality of the amnesty appears likely to be confirmed in the upcoming ruling, the opposition’s fierce response to the leaked court document suggests that its political combustibility is undimmed.
“Now they want to convince us that buying a government with privileges is legal,” said PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo. “I say it’s not. It’s not ethical, moral or legal.”
His party’s spokesman, Borja Semper, suggested that the legal question was irrelevant.
“Constitutional or unconstitutional, it’s political corruption,” he said.
With the legality of the law appearing to be settled, the opposition is now placing more emphasis on its morality. Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, the controversial chief adviser to the PP’s president of the Madrid region, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, appeared to equate the amnesty with slavery, female genital mutilation, polygamy and paedophilia, “because they are not expressly prohibited by the constitution”.
News of the constitutional court’s anticipated ruling has been well timed for the government, which is being corralled by an array of corruption allegations. Investigations have been carried out into the wife and brother of Sánchez for alleged irregularities, although the government insists these are part of a right-wing witch hunt.
However, another inquiry, into a kickback scheme in which a former minister, José Luis Ábalos, is implicated, is more damaging. So too is a scandal in which a Socialist Party activist, Leire Díez, was apparently caught on tape trying to gather evidence that would discredit the civil guard’s organised crime unit, which has been investigating the above cases.
A favourable ruling could also be helpful to the government for parliamentary reasons.
Puigdemont’s Together for Catalonia (JxCat) party has seven members of congress whose support is crucial for the stability of the Sánchez government. The relationship between the two has been turbulent since the formation of a new administration in late 2023, with the amnesty law a key part of their deal.
Lola García, a political columnist at La Vanguardia newspaper, noted that “if the Constitutional Court definitively supports the law in its ruling, the amnesty will be a political fact which will reinforce the [government’s] relationship with JxCat and could open the door to a meeting between Pedro Sánchez and Puigdemont”.
However, even if the constitutional court does endorse the amnesty law, its full application is likely to remain pending. That is because the supreme court previously ruled that several politicians, including Puigdemont and Junqueras, had benefited financially from the independence drive, disqualifying them from being amnestied. The constitutional court did not specifically tackle that issue in its preliminary report and it is not known if it will do so in its final ruling.
The conflicting positions of the two top tribunals appear to reflect the political allegiances of their magistrates, with the PP controlling the supreme court and the constitutional court under the Socialist Party’s influence.
Commentator Ignacio Varela, writing about the left-leaning balance of the constitutional court, said it is “the colour of the shirt” of the magistrates that decides their vote, rather than technical considerations. “Polarisation has reached [the court’s] headquarters and the militant vote is embedded there,” he said.
Puigdemont’s lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, criticised the supreme court for the same reason, albeit from the opposite point of view.
“The supreme court is in a position of rebellion which is incompatible with a democratic system,” he told The Irish Times. “The judges in the top courts are tremendously ideologically skewed and refuse to apply laws which, ideologically speaking, they do not agree with.”
Boye said that Puigdemont’s plans are still uncertain, with his potential return to Spain depending on judicial developments. They include appeals against Puigdemont and others being excluded from the amnesty.
Last summer the former Catalan president made a dramatic public appearance in Barcelona before being whisked away again across the border to escape arrest. Several members of the Mossos d’Esquadra Catalan police force have been investigated for their possible role in the stunt.
