The Spanish Congress approved the government’s contentious Catalan amnesty bill, removing the final legislative obstacle to its implementation.
The legislation aims to drop any ongoing legal proceedings against Catalan nationalists for their separatist actions, like their unsuccessful attempts for independence in 2017 and the referendum.
A slim majority of legislators supported the bill, with 177 voting in favor and 172 against.
Since its introduction by Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist Party (PSOE), the amnesty bill has been debated in parliament for six months.
Prior to moving to the opposition-controlled Senate, which postponed the bill’s approval but was unable to stop it entirely, it was adopted in a preliminary legislative vote in March.
Judges shall have access to the law upon its publication in the official gazette.
Judges can apply it for a period of two months. Legal challenges are still a possibility, but they shouldn’t prevent it from being implemented.
Nearly 400 Catalan nationalists who have been the target of legal action since November 2011 are anticipated to gain from the amnesty. A large number of people participated in the 2017 illegally organized independence referendum. The law would also help police who have been prosecuted for attacking voters during the referendum.
Carles Puigdemont, the former president of Catalonia who spearheaded the 2017 separatist movement and then went into self-exile in Belgium, where he has lived ever since while avoiding extradition, is the most well-known and contentious beneficiary, though. Numerous more politicians who supported independence also departed the nation.
