Parliament ends the legal impunity of the Franco regime

Approve next week a law pioneering the State of reparation of the victims of Franco extinguishing the summits of war councils
By Gemma Aguilera (Parliament)
06/21/2017


President Companys, on the border of Hendaye in 1940 | ARCHIVO NACIONAL DE CATALUÑA


Neither the Transition, nor the PP of the Majestic Pact, nor the PSOE Zapatero and historical memory. No government of the Spanish State, and no Catalan government had done casus belli. Until a few months ago, the Parliament of Catalonia decided to make an unprecedented legal gesture. To assume its own sovereignty and the legitimate continuity of republican legality to declare void all sumarísimos counsels of war and the corresponding sentences of the Franco regime applied in Catalonia. It will be with a law of legal reparation of the victims of Franco's regime, which will be approved in the plenary next week and will end the continued humiliation of victims and relatives, who for four decades have had the most counsels of Franco's war councils, because The Spanish democracy has refused to annul them. It is estimated that in Catalonia some 20,000 sumarísimos counsels of war were carried out, and of this law are excluded cases like the one of the leader of Unió, Manuel Carrasco and Formiguera, because it was shot in Burgos, or the one of the unionist anarchist Joan Peiró, tried in Valencia.

The bill will come to the end of June plenary session after the presentation by the Commission for External Action and Cooperation, Institutional Relations and Transparency, made up of representatives of all parliamentary groups, has produced a report on the proposed repair law Of the victims of the Franco regime, promoted by JxSí, CUP and CSQP. The first article, the most forceful, states that "all sumarísimos counsels of war and the corresponding sentences, instructed by political causes in Catalonia by the pro-Franco regime according to the Bando of July 28, are declared null and without any legal effect. 1936, the Decree of August 31, 1936, Decree number 55 of November 1, 1936, the Law of March 2, 1943, the Law of April 18, 1947, Decree 1794/60 of September 21 , And Decree Law 10/75, of August 26 ". In this article, the groups present several amendments.


Offering to the castle of Montjuïc, where Lluís Companys was shot on October 15, 1940 | GENERALITAT


Citizens, for example, proposes an amendment calling on Parliament to move Congress to add a new section of the law of historical memory, which recognizes and extends rights and provides measures in favor of those who suffered persecution Or violence during the civil war and dictatorship, which indicates that acts such as the resolutions of the bodies provided for in that article are left without legal effect. "After analyzing the amendments of the groups, the commission proposes a new drafted transactional Which gives rise to a new wording of article 1, which is the key vault of the law: "In accordance with the whole legal system, which includes rules of both international law and domestic law, courts of law are declared illegal. Audit of war of the occupation army, later called audit of the IV Military Region, that acted in Catalonia from April of 1938 h As December 1978, as being contrary to the law and violating the most basic requirements of the right to a fair trial. And consequently, the nullity of all the sentences and resolutions of the learned causes and of the military councils dictated by political causes in Catalonia by the pro-Franco regime is deducted.


Parliament to approve a law to repair victims of Franco | PARLIAMENT OF CATALONIA


The commission's report also calls for an additional provision stating that the National Archive of Catalonia is required to draw up and publish a list of the processes and judgments adopted, including the procedure number, Natural or legal person indicted and the sentence imposed. With the approval of this law, the Parliament will assume its historical responsibility, because the Republican Generalitat had the competences in the matter of Justice, and therefore, the courts that began to operate in Catalonia from 1938 were illegal, made against republican legality , And it is clear that the Franco regime imposed rules absolutely contrary to the republican legality of the Statute and the Constitution of the Republic, so that all those processes are void.