Pro-amnesty parties blame judges for lack of implementation one year after law passed

One year after the Spanish Congress gave its final approval to the amnesty law – on May 30, 2024 – it still has not been applied to the main political leaders of the 2017 Catalan independence referendum.

Pro-independence parties Junts and Esquerra Republicana (ERC) agree that judges are to blame for not applying the amnesty law.

The Spanish Supreme Court ruled that the amnesty law does not apply to former president Carles Puigdemont, former vice president Oriol Junqueras and former ministers Jordi Turull, Raül Romeva and Dolors Bassa, for the for the crime of misuse of public funds.

This has prevented Puigdemont from returning to Catalonia permanently, while the other pro-independence leaders are barred from office.

In the case of former ministers in exile Toni Comín and Lluís Puig, Spanish arrest warrants remain in force.

Junts: Amnesty law "recognition of repression"

The general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull – one of the 2017 referendum leaders who has not benefited from the amnesty – sees it as "very unlikely" that the law will be applied to him at the end of June.

This is when judges at Spain's Constitutional Court are expected to rule in favor of upholding the law. 

Turull predicts that critical judges will persist until a European court decision.

Nevertheless, he described the amnesty as a "very good law" and "recognition of the repression that should not have happened."

ERC: Judiciary is "rotten"

ERC's spokesperson in Congress, Gabriel Rufián, described the year since the amnesty's approval as "a great political victory" and "a judicial failure" at the same time.

"Part of the Spanish state and judiciary is rotten," he said, adding that judges act against democratic institutions because "they don't like their ideas."

Rufián predicts that the "solution" will be "international and European." 

"They will understand that this is an absolute outrage," he added.

Illa calls for amnesty implementation

Catalonia's Socialist President Salvador Illa called for the implementation of the amnesty.

During a press conference in Kobe, Japan, Illa said he would have liked it to be effective "from day one" and admitted he wishes "a whole year hadn’t gone by like this."

The president defended the amnesty as "a good law" and criticized "the stubbornness of some in denying reality."

A source from the Illa's party described the amnesty law as "the fundamental element" of the work they say has been done to restore "institutional and political normality" in Catalonia.

Comuns MEP Jaume Asens, who was directly involved in negotiating the amnesty, gave a negative assessment of the first year since the amnesty law was approved in Congress.

"A year of noncompliance in which judges are disobeying the will of the ballot box," he said, stressing that it was a law passed democratically.

Asens is hopeful that the Constitutional Court will "restore order" when it rules in June. 

Comuns form part of Sumar, the smaller party in the Spanish government coalition along with PM Pedro Sánchez's Socialists.

Far-right criticize "political corruption"

The leader of far-right Vox in Catalonia, Ignacio Garriga, described the amnesty as "the greatest act of political corruption" committed by a government in recent history.

According to him, crimes were pardoned in exchange for votes to allow Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to remain in power.

Similarly, the secretary general of the People's Party (PP) in Catalonia,  Congress MP Santi Rodríguez, denounced the amnesty law, saying it "was meant to reward certain individuals because Sánchez needed their votes."