Legislation What is the crime of sedition?
The reform of the crime of sedition to standardize it to the parameters of the surrounding countries "is a commitment by Pedro Sánchez, not a requirement of the ERC. We are in favor of reviewing and reducing sentences but we do not believe that this will solve the conflict".
This is the philosophy with which the Catalan republicans approach a possible reform of
the Criminal Code
that adapts the criminal type of sedition to the legislation that prevails in most EU countries.
A reform that has jumped back to the present with the beginning of the processing of the General State Budgets under the premise that this would be one of the key demands of the ERC so as not to veto public accounts.
From Esquerra it is ensured that they never put this issue as a condition for not presenting an amendment to the whole and they throw the ball to the roof of Sánchez who they reproach for "dragging his feet" in search of the moment that suits him best to take the final step and submit a concrete proposal.
ERC insists that although the standardization of the crime of sedition with the legislation of surrounding countries is something very desirable, its aspiration is more ambitious and points to what they call an "anti-repressive agenda".
They point out that lowering the penalties imposed on sedition would benefit its general secretary,
Marta Rovira
, but not the mayors and middle-ranking officials who are being prosecuted for their participation in
1-O
without ever being accused of sedition.
All of them must enter, they point out from the republican ranks, in the process of dejudicialization.
"They have to land"
In any case, the ERC insists that before pronouncing and closing any agreement, it is necessary for the PSOE to put a proposal on the table, something that, they say, it has not done to date.
"They have to land," they stress.
The conviction that there is no concrete offer is shared by the rest of the Catalan forces and some of them do not rule out urging the Government to pronounce itself taking advantage of the debate on the entire Budgets this Wednesday and Thursday.
The Republicans, like the rest of the Catalan independence formations, flatly reject Pedro Sánchez's argument that he does not have enough votes to propose the reform.
The accounts come out to everyone and range between 187 and 190 seats.
A more than comfortable majority for a reform that, because it affects an organic law, requires an absolute majority, that is, 176 votes in favor.
This does not prevent Junts, for example, from considering that "reducing sentences is equal to nothing".
For this party, the debate that has arisen around the revision of the crime of sedition is nothing more than "a theater."
CGPJ and elections
The obstacles that, in the opinion of the pro-independence parties, Sánchez encounters are two: the immediacy of his negotiation with the PP to renew the General Council of the Judiciary and the refusal of his barons to make concessions to the pro-independence movement in the run-up to the municipal and regional elections.
It is in this context that they consider that the President of the Government is trying to find the most opportune moment to propose the review.
The general opinion agrees that the window of opportunity will occur once an agreement is reached with the PP on the CGPJ and the forum to put a proposal on the table will be the
Dialogue Table
with the
Generalitat
, whose next meeting is being prepared between behind the scenes before the end of the year.
Announcing a commitment on these dates, and even processing it as an urgent bill in Congress, would allow the foreseeable misgivings to be mitigated before the regional elections.
Pedro Sánchez, they insist in Moncloa, remains firm in his intention to reform the crime of sedition and if Congress validates the Public Accounts it will be an opportune moment for both the Government and the ERC.
The sources consulted in the Government admit that the issue has not yet been worked on, that it has not been deepened and that a dialogue with the ERC has not been entered into on this matter.
They do believe, however, that the area to do so is the dialogue table between the Generalitat and the Government.
The intention of La Moncloa, at least today, is for this body to meet again before the end of the year, after its last appointment in July.
In this, both parties agreed on the will to advance in the realization of "legislative, normative, regulatory reforms or of any other nature to overcome the judicialization and its effects."
And the ERC clings to it demanding progress now.
Sánchez, who last week from
Brussels
reiterated his "personal commitment" to the reform of sedition, sees how now, once he has encapsulated the issue outside of the budget negotiation, a horizon of possibility is opening up to undertake change in The criminal code.
The objective that many draw in the socialist formation would be to do it before the elections but with enough margin to do pedagogy and prevent the matter from boiling over to the appointment with the polls.
The Government's approach would, in principle, reduce the penalties by half, under the pretext of equating them to other European countries.
Why half?
Because it is the approach that already contained the draft law to reform the Penal Code that the former Minister of Justice
Juan Carlos Campo
had ready to present at the end of 2020. The proposal was this and it is the one that continues to be the starting point in the Government, not because it is a concession now to ERC, but because it comes from then.
That yes, in the Executive they assume that it will be an approach that ERC will surely reject because they consider the rates still high.
In addition, they remember in the Government that the starting position was amnesty and not this reform of sedition.
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CKD
John Charles Field
Government of Catalonia
General Council of the Judiciary
PP
Pedro Sanchez
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Martha Rovira
State's general budgets
theater