Statesmanship

 

What’s the deal? Should the Government forgive the Catalonian separatists and grant clemency to the imprisoned nine?

How about the three on the lam in Brussels and Scotland (now once again with immunity)?

How about the many thousands of ordinary Catalonians who face fines or other punishment following the illegal pro-independence referendum from October 2017 (Wiki)?

An indulto is a ‘special measure of grace by which the competent authority forgives a person all or part of the penalty to which he had been sentenced by virtue of a final judgment’, says Google. You have to have been proven guilty by the court before you can be pardoned by an indulto. 

Pedro Sánchez has been warned (especially by the right-wing) that such mercy is misplaced and that he will lose support even from his own party-militants. Sánchez is however looking at statesmanship over politics, arguing that it is time to heal the problem rather than exacerbate it.

The Spanish – forgive the banal generalisation – don’t particularly like the Catalonians, but they don’t want them to ‘leave’. The issue is whether to use a strong stick or a carrot.

The right prefers the first, the left prefers the second.

Certainly, an important gesture from the Government in allowing ‘the political prisoners’ – who are serving between nine and fifteen years for sedition – to return to their homes is  overdue.

Arrayed against this proposal, which must first undergo a review of the rules before any announcement via a Council of Ministers can be made, we have the (PP-controlled) judges from the Supreme Court, the opposition parties (who intend to return to the Plaza de Colón for their photo opportunity on Sunday June 13th) and – as the right-wing media tells us – certain sectors of the PSOE itself (mainly those from the days of Felipe González).

Former governments have allowed indultos, pardons, at least for the lesser crime of corruption: there have been 155 signed off by the PP and 62 from the PSOE since 1996. José María Aznar signed the most with 139.

President Sánchez has so far not granted any indulgences.

‘Sanchez speaks of courage; the PP claim that it would be more courageous still to uphold the law’ – says the ECD here. ‘The police insist that Sánchez wants the pardon so as to hold on to power’ says the ABC (paywall) here. La Razón thinks that it’s ‘High Treason’ here.

On the ‘courageous side’ is former president Rodriguez Zapatero, who himself finally closed the chapter on ETA: "This decision can significantly help what all Spaniards want, which is for things to be better between Catalonia and the rest of Spain, both for the independence movement to lose strength and for dialogue to return", says Europa Press. 

As the left-wing elDiario.es says ‘They are in a hurry in their anger against the still non-existent pardon because they do not like to think that the Government can succeed in decompressing the Catalan problem’.