The amnesty is constitutional and must therefore be applied.
Just because it was a decision that was announced doesn't make it any less important. The amnesty law approved by Congress in May of last year has been declared constitutional by the Constitutional Court, and therefore there are no longer any doubts about its legality. Consequently, it is now up to the ordinary courts, and specifically the Supreme Court, to apply it in its entirety, remaining as faithful as possible to the text and the legislator's will.
That the law has been declared legal, with a few minor tweaks that do not affect the core of the law, is no small feat. For years, it was said that it was impossible for the Spanish legal system not to allow a law of this nature. When it came down to it, as always with law, this depended on whoever interpreted the Constitution. The ruling, in this sense, is clear: everything that the Constitution does not explicitly prohibit, such as amnesty, can be legally enforced if fundamental rights are respected and certain basic principles are adhered to. And amnesty, the Constitutional Court says, is an instrument that serves to resolve exceptional and particularly significant political crises, as the Trial undoubtedly was.
It is one thing, therefore, to be politically opposed to amnesty, to which everyone has every right, and another to consider it illegal. This second argument has fallen flat and everyone must abide by it. And especially judges, who are obliged to enforce the law regardless of their opinion on the law, because this is precisely the basis of the separation of powers. But this is not what we are seeing, unfortunately. The reality is that the Supreme Court has declared a kind of rebellion and is looking for ways to evade its duty by delaying the application of the law as much as possible with the undisguised objective of politically harming the current Spanish government.
Because let's remember that, if everything had followed its course, former President Carles Puigdemont would have been able to return to Catalonia the day after the law was passed, which also provided for the expiration of arrest warrants. Now, however, we'll have to wait, because the Supreme Court considers that embezzlement, a crime of which Puigdemont is also accused, is not eligible for amnesty.
But at least Thursday's ruling clarifies the procedural future of hundreds of people who were awaiting that decision. And it shows that with political will and a certain legal technique, obstacles that seem insurmountable at first glance are not. As Sánchez himself has emphasized, the Catalan conflict is political in nature and should never have been brought into the legal sphere, much less with such untimely classifications as sedition or rebellion. Prison or exile may have satisfied the desire for revenge of some, especially in Madrid, who felt threatened, but nothing resolved the issue politically. On the contrary. The amnesty has brought the conflict back into the political sphere once and for all, despite the boycott by some judges.
