Talks between the governing partners continue, but Sumar announced on Tuesday morning the first agreements with the PSOE to reform the Citizen Security Law – known as gag law– and the Criminal Code on freedom of expression. The amendment of the latter aims, among other things, to repeal the crimes of defamation against the Crown and considers “public reparations” for those who have been accused, but whose case is then archived. The pact, concluded in the last few hours, is part of the democratic recovery measures that the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will present in Congress this Wednesday. According to the Second Vice President, Yolanda Díaz, the agreement also includes the Law on Advertising and Institutional Communication, which will deprive public funding of media that violate ethical codes in journalistic activities.
Díaz made headlines as soon as the day started from Brussels, where he attended the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council (EPSCO) on Tuesday, where he announced an agreement between his party and the PSOE to “repeal” the law. gag lawIn reality, it is not a question of a repeal, but of changes to a rule approved in 2015 by the government of Mariano Rajoy, which has led to the imposition of almost two million fines until December 2022 (the latest available statistics). One of Sumar's spokesmen in Congress and negotiator, Enrique Santiago, made statements to the press in which he implicitly corrected the vice president's words when he spoke of a “profound reform” that had already been reflected in a bill in May that has not yet begun its parliamentary journey.
This text included the progress made by the parties of the investiture bloc in the reform of the law during the last legislature, in which agreements were reached to modify 36 of the 54 articles of the law, although it was eventually derailed in March 2023 due to disagreements with the ERC and Bildu on four others. Last Tuesday, Santiago expressed the hope of reaching an agreement between the government parties and the rest of the parliamentary forces in favor of a change in the law in a short time – in addition to the votes of the two executive parties, he would need those of the government parties, the PNV, EH Bildu, ERC, Junts and Podemos – although representatives of some of these groups have assured this newspaper that there have been no meetings to discuss this issue for months. Sumar added confusion to this supposed “withdrawal” by circulating a note among journalists in which he refuted the agreement with the PSOE on the gag law on one point of a single article, 36.23, on the dissemination of images of members of the security forces in the exercise of their functions, which had already been annulled by the Constitutional Court in a ruling of January 2021 and on which the parties are favourable to the During the last parliamentary term, an agreement had already been reached on a new draft.
As for the Criminal Code, it was agreed to suppress the crime against religious feelings or public ridicule, reflected in Article 525; also the repeal of crimes against the Crown, included in Articles 490.3 and 491 (which served to condemn the comedians of the magazine Thursday); and the insults against the Government of the Nation, the General Council of the Judiciary, the Constitutional Court and the army included in 504. This is not the first time that both parties have reached an agreement on this matter. In September 2022, during the previous parliamentary term, the PSOE joined a proposal to decriminalize the crimes of insulting the Crown and outrage against the symbols of Spain, supported by Unidas Podemos, ERC and EH Bildu. That bill proposed the deletion of two articles and part of another from the Criminal Code in order to revoke that specific legal protection of the King and his family and to no longer consider actions such as burning the flag as a crime.
Finally, the pact with the PSOE contains a final section regarding the change of the PSOE Organic Law 1/1982 on the civil protection of the right to honour, personal and family privacy and one's own image to include a “public compensation” in cases of “endless judicial instructions when the oral process does not begin, but numerous headlines are published that tarnish the honor or good name of the person under investigation.” At a press conference, Santiago justified that “you cannot subject people “for free” to “very long” procedures that ultimately lead to nothing and that the idea remains in society that these individuals have criminal responsibilities, but he acknowledged that there is still no agreed mechanism for such compensation. Sumar proposes that this be done through a “publication” in the media that could have the format of an advertisement and that, in his opinion, the judiciary should pay.
The IU parliamentary spokesperson also indicated that there are agreements to address the reform of the law on state secrets and professional secrecy of journalists, although there is currently no closed text.
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Negotiations between government partners have been developing discreetly in recent weeks. On behalf of the PSOE, the first vice-president, María Jesús Montero, and the Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, participated in these talks. In Sumar, the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, and the deputy of Izquierda Unida, Enrique Santiago, led the dialogue.
Urtasun himself expressed his party's desire at a press conference on Monday, hours before the agreement was reached, that the plan that Sánchez will announce on Wednesday will be in line with the greatest possible ambition, although he clarified that this will only be “a first package”, opening the door to new announcements after the summer. Between the Sumar demands In legal matters, as Santiago has specified, there is also the adoption of mechanisms that prevent situations of blockage such as those experienced for more than five years with the CGPJ, the modification of the powers of this body in accordance with the constitutional mandate, a reform for the democratization of access to the judicial career, a change in the operating mechanisms of the administration of justice or the restoration of the civil liability of judges, which was abolished by the Rajoy government. All aspects on which there is no agreement with the Socialists.