Carles Puigdemont’s get together maintains that the present regulation “confuses public maladministration with corruption” and goes as far as to say that within the first case political duty can solely be demanded. The goal of the Junts modification is to revert the Penal Code to 1995 and that the diversion of public funds with out “revenue motive” is taken into account an unfair administration The proposal doesn’t take into account as revenue that an individual derives public funds with partisan pursuits to take care of his place in energy
The first proposal to reform the crime of embezzlement is already on the desk, and it comes from the Plural Parliamentary Group, which integrates the minority events inside the Lower House and amongst them Junts, the get together of former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont. His proposal, as confirmed to NIUS by sources near the formation, focuses on reversing the reform of the Criminal Code that he carried out within the Popular Party in 2015 and separates the crime of unfair administration and embezzlement inside the Criminal Code.
For weeks, the coalition authorities has hesitated with the potential for together with the modification of the crime of embezzlement inside the Organic Law for the Transposition of European Directives and Other Provisions for the Adaptation of Criminal Legislation to the European Union Law. Or what’s the identical, the reform that Pedro Sánchez and his workforce are making ready of the Criminal Code whose principal block is the elimination of the crime of sedition that impacts the primary Catalan politicians convicted of holding the unlawful referendum of 1-O and the following Unilateral Declaration of Independence (DUI).
Among its arguments, the get together of the previous Catalan president maintains that “complicated the so-called public maladministration with corruption is a technical error because of a theoretical extra that the appliance of the present wording of the article has revealed, and that has a troublesome match.” with the laws of the environment and the overall understanding, inside the framework of the European Union, about what’s to be understood as corruption”. On this argument, the independence get together maintains in its modification proposal that “the clearest instance of this has been within the final 5 years with the political persecution suffered by the Catalan independence leaders and the embarrassment that this has meant for the Kingdom of Spain current as a criminal offense of corruption what’s nothing greater than a distinction in political standards on the subject of materializing the assorted public bills”.
Puigdemont in Waterloo on October 27 Martina Alcobendas
Just a political duty
The modification proposal offered by Esquerra Republicana, a reference associate of the coalition authorities, has but to be recognized and has not but made its arguments public, although they’re anticipated within the subsequent few hours. The delay is partly because of a tactical query: after the issues that the Law of ‘solely sure is sure’ has generated with the discount of sentences for these convicted of sexual assaults, no one within the chamber needs to run the danger of public publicity of ask now for reductions within the sentence for individuals who waste public cash. In the case of the Junts proposal, the utmost sentences would go from 12 to eight years in jail. But with a necessary factor: that there’s a confirmed revenue motive within the accused public official.
This factor is important for these convicted of the method, since of their case no illicit enrichment was confirmed, however a diversion of funds for functions not contemplated by regulation. The sentence was aggravated by far exceeding the quantity of 250,000 euros. But there’s a nuance. The Court included on this quantity the invoices agreed however not paid by the Catalan Administration. Namely; cash that in observe by no means left the general public coffers. This choice is in accordance with the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, which considers that the motion of funds or lack of belongings isn’t essential to commit a criminal offense of prevarication, however that the dedication to take action is sufficient. It is what Oriol Junqueras got here to name in an interview “embezzlement by thought.”
Now, Puigdemont’s get together even maintains that any duty for political bills should be excluded from prison legal responsibility and settled on the polls: “The normal curiosity, that’s, the idea for the legitimacy of spending, can’t be topic to judicial assessment or be left to the discretion of judges and courts however can solely and completely serve, if the circumstances come up, for a requirement for political duty that, in democratic methods, is carried out or takes place in every electoral appointment. Otherwise, what’s being accomplished is to ship a legal-criminal instrument to judges and courts in order that, from their explicit private political subjectivity, they’ll assessment or query the political exercise of different State powers”.
Chaves and Griñán through the EREEuropa Press trial
Cháves, Griñán and the Catalan separatists
However, the Junts modification for Congress additionally has a nod to Sánchez’s PSOE and the choice that the Executive should tackle the pardon request of the previous president of the Junta de Andalucía, José Antonio Griñán. In his opinion, if the procés was not corruption, neither was the function of the socialist chief within the plot of the ERE: “An instance of this, as has been seen just lately, is the case of the Catalan politicians and public officers who promoted and They carried out the independence referendum on October 1, 2017. But it has not solely affected the Catalan independentistas, the very same scheme has additionally been utilized to the socialist leaders of Andalusia, convicted of executing the legal guidelines authorized by the Andalusian parliament ”. In this case, it refers back to the granting of 680 million euros to bankrupt corporations by the regional administration. The ruling considers it confirmed that Griñán was conscious that these aids weren’t getting used accurately.
In the opinion of the independentistas get together, “it’s not the identical to learn or profit third events on the expense of public cash than, merely, to provide these a use that may be thought-about illegitimate by the opposition or different actors (resembling sure judges and courts ). Both behaviors will not be solely not homogeneous, however they should obtain a really totally different therapy. The former are clearly deserving of prison sanction, however the latter are developed on the degree of reliable political discretion and, due to this fact, aside from the political tasks that they might entail, probably the most that they’ll entail is referral, when it must be so. of the corresponding accounting duty”.
However, there are two essential components that don’t seem on this argument. The first is that this allegation leaves the idea of “revenue motive” with out definition. In the writing, this intention is equated with illicit enrichment. With filling their pockets with different folks’s cash. Nevertheless. What occurs, for instance, with the diversion of public funds for partisan functions, away from the overall curiosity? With the bills authorized by public officers exterior the authorized margin or their administrative capability and who solely search to perpetuate their place within the face of doable elections? According to those examples, components which might be investigated in proceedings such because the Púnica case, the place sure status contracts for political leaders of the PP seem, or choices made by the Madrid Administration with a transparent electoral curiosity, wouldn’t be thought-about corruption both.
In the second case, it doesn’t identify the argument that Griñán and his predecessor in cost, Manuel Cháves, had been already tried with laws similar to the one now proposed by Junts, for the reason that support investigated within the ERE case was delivered earlier than 2015, date on which the Popular Party made the present modification of the Penal Code. In reality, Griñán was Andalusian president till 2013. According to the laws, on this case probably the most helpful laws for these investigated was utilized, which was in pressure since 1995, with most sentences of eight years. The identical ones that Puigdemont’s get together is now requesting in its modification and which might be being thought-about as doable for the brand new reform.