Trillo sees the path of the preliminary ruling to the CJEU as "hopeful" because the amnesty "breaks the rule of law"

He says that 'lawfare' is present in the amnesty law and he believes that people like Laura Borràs will benefit

MADRID, 19 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The jurist Federico Trillo, former president of Congress and former Minister of Defense, considers the path of the preliminary ruling before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to be "hopeful" because, in his opinion, with the amnesty law "the "the rule of law in Spain breaks down" and, therefore, the Treaty of the European Union can be applied.

In statements to Europa Press, Trillo has acknowledged that the bill that the PSOE has registered in Congress is "formally and technically much more polished" and "varnished" than the one presented in 2021 by the ERC and Junts groups, although " materially" the same thing is intended: "forgiveness" and "forgetting the crime."

After emphasizing that this rule does not achieve reconciliation, especially when the independentists have said that "they are going to repeat it again", the former minister explained that it is "very important that from the first moment" questions of unconstitutionality are raised by "the judges who have to apply the amnesty". "That is, for everyone," he added.

Trillo has said that he hopes the Supreme Court will also do so, "which prolongs the effectiveness of the amnesty even beyond two or three months." However, the bill that the PSOE has registered in Congress expressly states that the question of unconstitutionality that is expected to be raised by the Supreme Court does not suspend the effects of the law.

In this context, he has admitted that the European preliminary ruling question before the European Court is "very hopeful" and has expressed certainty that it will be raised because "it is evident" that "the rule of law is broken in Spain and there is a full place for application of the Treaty on European Union".

Trillo has highlighted that it is the first time in the recent democratic history of the validity of the Constitution "that the judges demonstrate outside the courts", in the same way that "it is the first time" that "all the judicial and prosecutorial associations of unanimously reject the constitutionality of the project.

The former minister, who joined the Council of State as a senior lawyer in 2017, considers that this unanimous opposition from the legal world is an "argument" that will have "without a doubt weight in the decision of the European Union and the European Court." The admission for processing of a preliminary ruling before the CJEU has a suspensive effect.

Regarding the possibility of continuing the 2019 terrorism process instructed by Judge Manuel García Castellón in the Tsusami case, whose investigation he has also directed against Puigdemont, Trillo has recognized that "they have taken great care to exclude terrorism of the amnesty, but provided that a final sentence has been handed down".

Thus, he recalled that this matter is still in the investigation process and, "therefore the amnesty will end there." "And not to mention those who contributed to financing separatist activities during those years," she exclaimed.

When asked if there is any room to act in this regard, he pointed out that "the room would be for the proceedings requested by García Castellón to be carried out before the amnesty law comes into force." "That's the bottom line," he said.

Trillo has pointed out that the amnesty text registered in Congress opens the door to 'lawfare' (use of Justice to pursue political causes) although he has admitted that "they have had the ability not to put it in its English terms, coined in the Anglo-Saxon judicial or legal world".

"But of course lawfare is present through those commissions that talk about supervising the application of this law and those acts that have been prosecuted previously or could be prosecuted in the period included in the indicated dates," he declared.

Regarding whether the law can affect cases such as that of Laura Borràs, president of Junts and former president of the Catalan Parliament, Trillo has assured that "of course it is included" and will be one of the "beneficiaries" of the Law of Amnesty that the PSOE and its partners want to approve in Parliament.

Given the possibility that Bildu wants to amnesty ETA prisoners, a possibility that the PP has not ruled out seeking to include via amendments, Trillo explained that, in "the current wording", "ETA terrorists do not fit because they are sentenced, just as García Castellón could be charged if it ends before the law is in force. "But not those of ETA," he added.

Of course, he stressed that they do not know what the agreement was between the PSOE and Bildu for the latter party to support the investiture of Pedro Sánchez, given that "Bildu does not give the vote for free or as a joke." That said, he has criticized the intention that the law be processed urgently, "at full speed and cutting the deadlines in half."

Trillo has stated that the investiture session held this week "has rather been a motion of censure reversed against the PP and Vox" because Pedro Sánchez dedicated a good part of his intervention "to censuring the Popular Party in order to leave a curtain over the Chamber of smoke in the absence of a truly positive alternative on the part of the candidate.

Furthermore, he has pointed out that the interventions of his partners were above all "a settling of accounts" and "a request for alleged past grievances", as well as "a destructive projection of the Spain of the future."

Trillo has highlighted that in a parliamentary monarchy like the British one, if the prime minister loses the elections, "he has to resign the next day", while the government with the most votes forms. "But forming a majority with the negative remains is unusual in the parliamentary system," he criticized, to blame Sánchez for already doing it with the motion of censure against Mariano Rajoy and now doing it again before the investiture.

Furthermore, he stressed that an investiture session has to be "propositive" and propose a "joint national project" instead of "a project to dismantle Spain." "Therefore, once again, as has been happening with Sánchez's entire mandate, what is being produced is, without formally changing the Constitution, a constitutional mutation," he denounced.

Trillo, who was a key legal actor in the resources promoted by Mariano Rajoy when he led the PP, has assured that "anything that involves continuing to look back with that revisionist mentality is a mistake and is the denial of reconciliation between Spaniards in the that the Constitution was based on."