Madrid’s regional president, Isabel Ayuso, said in a radio interview Thursday that her government will take steps to hinder the implementation of the new law and will appeal as it is unconstitutional.
Pablo Simón, a political scientist at the Carlos III University of Madrid, said judges could also take legal action if they found the granting of general legal amnesty discriminatory.
“Each judge has different criteria,” Simón explained, adding that he could also resort to the intervention of the European Court of Justice “if he considers that the granting of the general amnesty is discriminatory”, in which case “the law could become paralyzed”. .”
The amnesty law applies to people involved in the Catalan independence movement, which came to a head in October 2017, when the region’s separatist government, led by Puigdemont, ignored Spanish court orders and proceeded with a referendum.
Numerous voters were injured by violent police intervention, and the vote was followed by a declaration of independence, as well as repression by the Spanish government, which removed the Catalan government and imposed direct control. Nine political leaders were jailed for crimes including sedition, while Puigdemont fled across the border into France, and then into Belgium, narrowly avoiding arrest.
