The senior lawyer of Congress will stand up to the Venice Commission for not giving explanations about the Amnesty law

Marisa Cruz Madrid

Marta Belver Madrid

Madrid

Madrid

Updated Tuesday, February 6, 2024-14:13

• Politics Sánchez puts pressure on Junts: it will continue with or without amnesty

• The last seat An amnesty of fragmentation

The

Congress Board

, dominated by PSOE and Sumar, has decided that the senior lawyer of the Chamber,

Fernando Galindo

, will not respond to the meeting request made to him by the delegation of the

Venice Commission

, the advisory body of the

Council of Europe.

on constitutional matters, who will visit Spain starting Thursday to prepare a report on the Amnesty law sponsored by the Government to erase crimes committed under the protection of the process.

The Board has decided that the Venice Commission will meet with the spokespersons of the Justice Commission and even that the governing body of this commission, with a majority of PSOE and Sumar, like the Congress Board, will establish the agenda. and the agenda that will attend to the delegates representing the Council of Europe.

The Venice Commission visits Spain at the request of the Senate, a chamber in which the PP has an absolute majority, in order to draft a report on the substance of the law and, according to the popular ones, on its parliamentary processing.

In this sense, the members of the Commission asked to hold a meeting with the general secretary and senior lawyer of the Chamber, Fernando Galindo, since it was he who presented a first report favorable to the constitutionality of the bill presented by the Socialist group. , allowed the Congress Board to give the green light to its processing.

The opposition recalls that the previous secretary general and senior lawyer issued a report to the contrary when in 2021 ERC, Junts, PDeCAT and the CUP registered a proposed Amnesty law. That report considered that he was a figure that had no place in the Magna Carta, the same position that the Government defended at that time.

The PP, through its spokesperson in Congress, Miguel Tellado, has harshly attacked the president of Congress, Francina Armengol, and the senior lawyer, Fernando Galindo, whom it accuses of being the executors of Pedro's agenda. Sánchez in Congress.

Tellado has reviewed all the occasions in which, in the opinion of the opposition, the president of the Chamber has acted arbitrarily in defense of the socialist postulates and the Government and has openly reproached her for not putting a stop to the "insults" and " accusations of prevarication" that some deputies have launched from the gallery of the Chamber at the judges, citing them by name and surname. "Armengol either ignores the Regulations or abandons his duties so as not to disturb the pro-independence partners," said Tellado, referring to article 103.1 of the Congress Regulations, which establishes that speakers will be called to order if they make offensive attacks against others. State institutions.

In the PSOE, for their part, they argue that the Congress Board "has done exactly the same thing that has always been done" in these cases. "The Venice Commission came here to see the Citizen Security Law in 2014, under the presidency of the PP, and who did it meet with? With the Interior Commission," explained its spokesperson in the Lower House, Patxi López.

Regarding the decision that Fernando Galindo does not attend to the delegation of the advisory body of the Council of Europe and that the Justice Commission does so, the representative of Pedro Sánchez's party added: "Has the lawyer prepared the law? "The lawyer has to give a political opinion on the law? No, right? Therefore, let's not draw conclusions that have nothing to do with reality."

Socialist sources have added that, compared to those who want to "instrumentalize" this verification mechanism - in reference to the PP, what they seek is to give "normality" to the process and that they will send their spokespersons to defend that the text proposed to cover the amnesty is "fully constitutional." Likewise, they defend the lawyer's non-appearance with the argument that he cannot be elevated to "the category of political actor."