The proposal to reform the Senate Regulations began its parliamentary journey this Wednesday after its consideration was approved by the absolute majority of the PP. The purpose of this modification is to leave the Lower House Board the power to decide whether or not the initiatives sent from Congress are processed through the urgent procedure, which is 20 days instead of the maximum two months of the ordinary procedure.
Without this temporary exceptionality, any law – including the amnesty for those involved in the process that Pedro Sánchez is negotiating with the pro-independence parties – can be delayed if successive extensions of the amendment deadlines are agreed, thus delaying its final approval and entry into force. The investiture partners of the socialist candidate for re-election as President of the Government have shown their total disagreement with this measure.
“What we see today is a clear example of political filibustering, promoting parliamentary obstructionism by all means, delaying the processing of a legitimate and democratic initiative that, to this day, has not yet been presented, by the way,” denounced the JuntsJosep Lluís Cleries senator. “They are turning the Senate into the private farm of the PP,” he added.
Representing ERC, Josep Maria Reniu has pointed out, in turn, that the “ad hoc” reform proposed “serves temporary political objectives” and “has a simple spurious interest.” Alluding to the fact that the process has been initiated precisely through the emergency procedure, he added: “It is an absolute disregard for the procedural rule of this house. We are dealing with a proposal to reform the Senate Regulations that is lawful, it would be necessary to do more, but skipping to bullfighter the same procedure established by the Senate Regulations”.
For the PSOE, the Popular Party’s initiative will remain in “the annals of bad parliamentarism as “an example of not knowing how to administer the absolute majority.” “The real reason is that what Mr. [José María] Aznar has said, Then Mrs. [Isabel Díaz] Ayuso said it and Mr. [Alberto Núñez] Feijóo complies to the letter, which is none other than, preventively, presenting this reform in the face of the possibility of an amnesty law being proposed,” he said. underlined Francisco Fajardo.
The PP justifies this modification in the Lower House, without explicitly linking it to judicial relief for those prosecuted by 1-O, as a way to put an end to the “unhealthy ways of legislating” that have “proliferated” in the last legislature. Among them, parliamentarian Eloy Suárez has cited the “use and abuse of the decree law” and the promotion of law proposals promoted directly by parliamentary groups with “the sole objective of avoiding the mandatory reports” that the bills require and that “they would expose” the Sánchez Government.
The party that has an absolute majority in the Senate now proposes a change in article 133 of the regulations by adding a point so that the Table “can decide the application of the emergency procedure” when requested by the central Executive or Congress or acting ex officio proposal of a parliamentary group or 25 senators. In this way, he maintains, it will be able to act as a “true second reading chamber” where the laws from the San Jerónimo career can be “improved.”
The consideration of the modification has been approved by 145 votes in favor, among which are not those of Vox – which considers the modification “pertinent”, but believes that “there is room” to expand it -, 113 against and none abstention. The PSOE has already announced that it will appeal to the Constitutional Court.
