Congress approves the reform that suppresses sedition, but the PP and Ciudadanos refuse to participate in the vote

Batet guarantees that the Chamber will abide by any resolution of the TC but, for the moment, has not received any notification

The Plenary Session of Congress has approved this Thursday the law that suppresses the crime of sedition, reforms that of embezzlement and modifies the election of the two magistrates of the Constitutional Court that corresponds to appoint the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), but it has done so in a vote in which neither the PP nor Ciudadanos have participated.

Specifically, the bill has obtained the vote of 184 deputies from the government parties and their parliamentary allies, exceeding the minimum bar of absolute majority (176) required by its organic nature.

Thus, the two groups that make up the coalition government plus ERC, the PNV, the PDeCAT, Más País and Bildu, have supported the reform, despite the fact that the nationalist coalition had chosen to abstain during the procedure in the Justice Commission. In plenary, the only abstention has carried the signature of the Compromís deputy, Joan Baldoví, who had expressed his doubts about the reform of the crime of embezzlement because he fears that it could benefit those convicted of corruption.

On their side, Junts, the CUP, the Canary Islands Coalition, the BNG, Foro Asturias, Navarra Suma, Teruel Existe, the Regionalist Party of Cantabria, the PP deputy Valentina Martínez, and Vox have voted against.

Those of Santiago Abascal had left the chamber during the debate on the initiative after the refusal of the president of Congress, Meritxell Batet, to suspend the plenary session until the TC ruled on the amparo appeal presented by them and the PP, but that then they came back.

Before the vote, the general secretary of the parliamentary group, José María Figaredo, has once again asked the president that the vote not take place until there is a resolution from the Constitutional Court on the amendments relating to the General Council of the Judiciary and the Court of guarantees itself, which have been challenged by both the PP and Vox.

One of the arguments previously used by Batet for not suspending the session had been that the Congress Bureau had not received any official communication from the TC regarding the deliberation of the resources, for this reason Vox has formally addressed the governing body of the Chamber informing him of the TC's decision to continue its deliberations on Monday.

However, Batet has replied to Figaredo that "communication by a parliamentary group" cannot lead to the suspension of a legislative procedure. He has also mentioned article 270 of the Organic Law of the Judiciary and 150 of the Civil Procedure Law to remind him that "notification is the means to become aware of the existence and effectiveness of a judicial resolution" and has made it clear that, "of course" the Chamber "would comply as it cannot be otherwise", a notification from the TC.

For their part, PP and Ciudadanos have decided not to participate in the vote. The 'popular' were in their seats, but they have not pressed any button while the 'oranges' have not even entered the Plenary Hall for the vote.

WE ARE NOT IN SUPPORT OF ABANDONING THE INSTITUTIONS

After the law was approved, Gamarra asked for the floor again to explain that his group did not participate in the vote because, in his opinion, it should not have been held, since Congress should have waited for the TC to decide on the appeal filed by his group.

"Since we are not in favor of abandoning the institutions, we have stayed, but at a moment as critical as this, obviously we are not going to vote," he concluded.

From Ciudadanos, whose deputies have been in the chamber during the debate, they have explained that they have refused so much to be present during the vote so as not to participate "in the cacicada" that, in their opinion, Congress has committed "in collusion and under the direction of the speaker of the House" only "to favor their doomed separatist partners".

Once approved by the Plenary of Congress, the law is sent to the Senate to complete its processing. In the Upper House it is expected to vote on the 22nd and the Socialists hope that there will be no changes so that it enters into force before Christmas.

LEGAL CHANGES

The bill, which has been dispatched in Congress in just five weeks, had as its main objective to suppress from the Penal Code the crime of sedition for which the independence leaders of the procés were convicted, although other measures were also added, such as the aggravation of sentence for concealment of corpse.

And when the time came to present amendments to the articles, the PSOE and Unidas Podemos introduced other issues such as the reform of the system to designate candidates for the TC by the Council of the Judiciary. Thus, it goes from a three-fifths majority -which now requires at least 11 votes- to a simple one for the CGPJ to designate its two candidates for the TC and that, in the event that the governing body of the judges continues breaching their obligation to send two applicants to the Constitutional Court, their members can be held criminally responsible.

In addition, they contemplate that, instead of each of the 18 members proposing and voting for two candidates, they propose and vote for only one, which -according to the CGPJ sources consulted by Europa Press- will guarantee that the two most voted are the aspirants chosen by each block of the Council (the progressive and the conservative). This is, in the case of the progressives: the magistrate of the Supreme Court (TS) José Manuel Bandrés.

Likewise, they introduced a new crime of legal enrichment at the same time that they agreed with ERC on a modification of the penalties for embezzlement: when there is a profit motive, maintaining the current penalties (from 2 to 12 imprisonment and 6 to 20 disqualification); and two new types: one non-profit for "private use" (from 6 months to 3 years in prison and disqualification from 1 to 4 years) and another for when the embezzled goes to a purpose other than that intended (from 1 to 4 years in prison and 2 to 6 years of disqualification).