The amnesty law will pass the expected approval process in the Congress on Tuesday and will be immediately sent for debate in the Senate, where the PP expects to use its absolute majority to obstruct it in every way possible. The PP’s strategy is clear: to stop the law using all political and administrative tools at their disposal, in the Mesa, the corresponding committee, and when it reaches the plenary session. Sara Sieira Mucientes, recently appointed as the head lawyer and secretary general of the Senate, has hired a lawyer who signed the critical report against the amnesty in the Congress Justice Committee. Both the Senate and the Congress are experiencing a dispute with resignations, resignations, and transfers of lawyers.
The Congress and Senate’s legal teams will meet this Tuesday, as they do every week, and are expected to approve a reorganization of their respective legal teams, which is closely tied to the political battle over the amnesty. The head lawyer of the Congress, Fernando Galindo, appointed last October, will make adjustments to various appointments in different departments and committees, as the new secretary general of the Senate, Sara Sieira Mucientes, is planning to do the same. The President of the Senate, Pedro Rollán, has hired Sieira to replace the previous head lawyer, Manuel Cavero, causing the resignation of his two assistants last week. These movements are seen as politically motivated based on their positions on the amnesty and their relationship with Galindo or Sieira.
The political and legal battle over the amnesty law, now moving to the Senate after the phase in Congress, will see the PP using all sorts of procedural actions to delay the law. The first discussion, which for now seems unlikely, is whether the Senate’s Mesa, its governing body, would even accept processing the law for debate. This option is currently not being considered, even if the new general secretary of the Senate issues a report against the constitutionality of the law different from the one accepted by Galindo in the Congress. The PP will likely not accept the urgency process approved by the Congress and may place the discussion of amendments to the law in the Justice or Constitutional Committee in the Senate.
The President of the Senate is not currently planning to use opposing legal reports to disqualify or reject the mere processing of the law for debate, as this could lead to a serious institutional conflict that would require the intervention of the Constitutional Court. The PP plans to accept the processing, submit amendments, and request various appearances to delay its approval and return to the Congress for at least two months. If the PP does nothing in the Senate Mesa or Committee with the law, the Congress would consider it approved without any changes 21 days after sending it to the Senate and it would be published in the BOE for its entry into force.
Additionally, the Constitutional Court has already established criteria regarding the Senate’s powers over laws passed by the Congress in a very clear manner in ruling 97/2002. The ruling pertained to a law by the socialist government of the Balearic Islands declaring the Ibiza Salt Flats as a nature reserve. The Senate simply did not approve the law without vetoing it or introducing amendments, and the Congress sent it directly to be sanctioned by the King. This was allowed because the Constitution specifies only two cases in which the Senate can disagree, leading to a new review in the Congress: vetoing it and returning it in full or with amendments.
