Constitutional Court begins debating first ruling on amnesty law

Spain’s Constitutional Court began deliberating Monday on its first ruling concerning the amnesty law.

The debate is expected to last the entire week, and by the end, the judges are anticipated to declare the law fully constitutional, with the exception of three specific provisions.

In early June, much of the content of the draft ruling was leaked. This is the document currently under discussion and is expected to be voted on during the week.

According to the draft, the court does not endorse three parts of the law. It establishes that the amnesty must also cover individuals who protested against the Catalan independence movement.

It limits the law’s scope of application to events that occurred between November 1, 2011, and November 13, 2023. And it obliges the Court of Auditors to hear from private prosecutors before initiating proceedings related to accounting responsibility.

This will be the first of thirty appeals to the amnesty law that the court must address. Most of these appeals have been submitted by the People’s Party, while others come from various courts and some from pro-independence leaders.

However, even if the Constitutional Court upholds the law, the Supreme Court has already signaled that it will not apply the amnesty to the leaders of the Catalan independence movement.

Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena has stated that he will maintain the arrest warrant for former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont.

He intends to disregard the Constitutional Court’s ruling because it does not specifically address the crime of misuse of public funds, one of the charges Puigdemont faces.

The Supreme Court could ultimately refer the matter to the Court of Justice of the European Union for further consideration.