Conde-Pumpido allocates an entire week for discussing and deciding on amnesty.

The President of the Constitutional Court, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, has scheduled the entire week from June 23 to 27 for the plenary session of the guarantee body to review the draft ruling on the amnesty law in detail. Conde-Pumpido responds to a letter from the conservative block magistrate Enrique Arnaldo, who considered that the three days of a regular plenary session might be insufficient for this deliberation, requesting that the discussion on the ruling be extended until the two plenary sessions planned for July, which will take place on the 7th and 24th of that month.

The progressive majority of the Constitutional Court believes that “successive readings of the draft” will not be necessary during the plenary meetings in July, as all magistrates involved in the deliberation and ruling have had a copy of the text since the 2nd. This led the court president to respond positively to Arnaldo’s request, but without extending the deliberation beyond June, instead allowing two more days in the same week for this debate.

The plenary session for the deliberation and voting on the ruling was scheduled to take place between June 24 and 26, with the progressive majority convinced that this would be enough time to vote on the last date. However, the aforementioned magistrate expressed doubts about the viability of this schedule and requested an extension to keep the possibility of holding the ruling’s vote in July open. Arnaldo explained in his letter that he made this request to ensure that, given the resolution’s special legal significance, the court members would have the opportunity to conduct “a sufficiently detailed and not rushed assessment of the arguments, which I am sure each one will need to present.”

In response to this initiative and the thesis regarding the possible insufficiency of time, Conde-Pumpido authorized the five working days from June 23 to 27 “for the deliberation and voting on the ruling.” The court president also emphasized that this extension is agreed “in order to have enough time and maintain the continuity of deliberation and the unity of the act with the voting.” Conde-Pumpido added that “this provision, studied in detail in collaboration with the reporting magistrate (the court’s vice president, Inmaculada Montalbán), is necessary to begin in September the study of the remaining pending matters on this issue,” which includes 30 appeals related to the autonomous communities, issues of unconstitutionality, and appeals for protection from those convicted in the procés who were not subject to the law as the Supreme Court believes its effects should not extend to the crime of embezzlement.

In his resolution, the president of the Constitutional Court states that with the new decision regarding the timelines for discussing the draft ruling and the corresponding vote on the appeal presented by the PP against the amnesty law, the time set is “sufficient for the study of the draft, since it has been distributed more than three weeks in advance, as requested.” He also explains that “two plenaries will be dedicated to the debate on this norm.” The first, starting this Tuesday, June 10, will be “informational and not deliberative, where the reporting magistrate will provide a detailed presentation of the proposal.” Meanwhile, the second, two weeks later, will serve to carry out “a prior (to the vote) and thorough study of the proposal,” and will be “a specialized plenary, where all necessary deliberation can take place.” Conde-Pumpido also considered that extending the deliberation into July “would greatly complicate getting the ruling duly signed, including any potential dissenting opinions, before the summer vacation.”