Computer error or human failure?
Be a mistake of the computer system of the Congress of Deputies – the first one in the history of democratic parliamentarism – or an error of the deputy of the People Alberto Popular Party, in the formation of Pablo Marriedo are determined to carry the battle for the vote until the end
which gave the parliamentary victory for the minimum government in a key issue as the validation of labor reform.
The parliamentary dispute could have as the last stop the Constitutional Court.
The popular argues that under article 6 of the resolution of the Table of Congress – where May 21, 2012- which establishes that “the deputy who had issued his vote through the telematic procedure may not issue his face-to-face vote without express authorization
From the table of the camera that, in the event that decides to authorize the face-to-face vote will declare the telematic vote null and not issued, “the president of the Congress, Meritxell Batet, must have allowed Alberto Home to vote in a face-to-face manner.
The sources of the legal legal services consulted by the world explain that the key is to determine if the BATT President was attributed a competence from which he lacks when, without previously hearing the opinion of the Bureau, he did not give an option to the PP deputy
to cancel their telematic vote and vote in a face-to-face manner in the Hemicycle.
In addition, they ensure that deputies have the right to change their telematics vote to face-to-face as long as the vote has not begun.
According to the Journal of Sessions, the spokeswoman of the Popular Group, Cuca Gamarra interpelled the President to tell him that there had been a “computer error” and Meritxell Batet responded that “the table is aware and has been possible
Analyze the question you will ask me. ”
However, it does not consist that such a meeting of the Table of Congress will occur, different parliamentary sources indicate.
The legal debate raised could lead to the fact that the fundamental right of the deputy to vote according to his will is above any regulatory precept of the Chamber, indicates legal sources.
At the moment, BATT has not formally commissioned the lawyers of the Congress that issued a report on what is not discarded that the legal services of the Chamber end up pronouncing on an issue that, beyond the political consequences it has brought, is clearly
Legal
Depending on the response of the Bureau to PP claims, this training could request from a rectification of the voting result until a repetition of it.
To consider the table that we are facing a clear human error of home that can not or should not be rectified, the training of marriage has already announced that it will resort in Amparo before the Constitutional Court.
In this second scenario, it is highly likely that the Guarantee Tribunal admitted by processing the demand for the protection of the popular by a supposed violation of the exercise of its functions as a parliamentary in conditions of equality (Article 23.2 of the Constitution) and under the argument of
That the will of the House was sticked with Batet’s performance.
Legal sources consulted explain that although the percentage of admission of the demands of amparo is very low, in the case of known as “parliamentary resources”, where decisions of the table of the low chamber can only be challenged before the TC, the
Court admits the most of these resources for its constitutional transcenderation for processing.
In addition, the organ sources consulted argue that there is no constitutional doctrine about a fact of these characteristics, that is, that affects the telematic vote.
There is only one similar precedent – but not identical – of an estimate of an anticipation of a deputy of the PSOE in the Basque Parliament who, during the face-to-face vote of the Budget of Autonomous Budgets of the year 2005, could not exercise its right to vote
Because when it was to use the “No” button he found that it did not work.
His vote was not issued despite the complaints of the Socialist Party that in the same full of the autonomic chamber protested at what was happening, that is, by technical failure.
Even so, the Chairman of the House refused to repeat the vote and the vote of the Socialist never computed.
On that occasion, the Constitution estimated the protection of Deputy Irene Novales and annulled the vote held in the Basque Parliament and stressed that “the fundamental right of a parliamentarian, falls on the organs of the Chamber, and especially over its president
, the task of demonstrating that the deputy had a negligent behavior. ”
The High Court sentenced that “it is not logical to understand that, before a technical problem, it can happen more or less frequently in that type of electronic systems and without it, on the other hand, it has been faithfully demonstrated that it was a negligence of the deputy
, the only presidential reaction was the refusal to the verification of the anomaly at that time and the repetition, where appropriate, of the controversial vote, with the serious consequences that this implied for the outcome of it and for the knowledge of the authentic
Will of the House on the subject so transcendent for the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country as was the approval of its Budget Law. ”
On the case of the home deputy, parliamentary sources indicate that the services of the low chamber informed President Meritxell Batet that no computer error had occurred in the vote of the PP parliamentarian, who voted not, against the indications of
His party, on two other occasions.
