The president of the Constitutional Court, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, considers that the interpretation made by the Supreme Court when it refused to grant amnesty for the crime of embezzlement of public funds from 1-O is "manifestly contrary to the spirit and purpose of the law being interpreted." This is stated in the presentation written to respond to the appeal for protection by former councilor Dolors Bassa, which has been distributed today among the magistrates.
In the draft ruling, where it is proposed to uphold Bassa's claim, Conde-Pumpido maintains that "the interpretation of the law sponsored by the Chamber [in reference to the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court] leads to a drastic contraction of the possibilities of applying the amnesty to the crimes of embezzlement of public funds committed to finance the consultations and the independence process in Catalonia, manifestly contrary to the spirit and purpose of the law that is interpreted."
The presentation, known by EL MUNDO, adds that "it is not, as stated by the Chamber itself, a strict interpretation of the Amnesty Law, derived from its supposed character as an exceptional law, but rather a teleological reduction in that it excludes cases included in the core of the norm."
Last week, the Plenary Session of the Constitutional Court, thanks to the progressive majority, decided to revoke the interpretation made by the Criminal Chamber on the amnesty and the crime of embezzlement of 1-O, which excluded erasing the diversion of funds carried out with the purpose of obtaining a financial benefit.
The main issue, that is, the appeal for protection by former councilor Jordi Turull, corresponded to the magistrate of the conservative sector José María Macías who, despite being in the minority, decided to maintain the presentation. As this newspaper reported, in the aforementioned plenary session, President Conde-Pumpido announced that he would also take his presentation on Dolors Bassa to the plenary session next October for deliberation and ruling.
It concludes that "the appealed judicial resolutions have not only incurred an unpredictable interpretation of the applicable precepts, but also, by deviating from the purpose of the Amnesty Law, they have not maintained the necessary link of coherence between the decision adopted, the norm that serves as its basis and the purposes that justify the institution of the amnesty."
The Constitutional Court interprets that when the legislator left out of the application of the Amnesty Law that embezzlement whose purpose was "to obtain a personal benefit of a patrimonial nature" it issues "a mandate to exclude conduct that, due to its final purpose, has weakened or broken its causal link with the secessionist purposes covered in the material scope of the law." For the president of the TC, "with the rules of logic and common sense" this is the only possible interpretation of the Amnesty Law taking into account "its spirit and purpose, as well as its own genesis."
The presentation elaborates that the Supreme Court's judicial resolutions have been contrary to "the purpose of the norm" and "contrary to the defendant." "Judicial interpretation must be governed by the ratio legis or the purpose of protection of the norm, which requires that the judicial decision contain an argument that is respectful of the purposes pursued by the institution of amnesty," Conde-Pumpido's text highlights.
The Constitutional Court recalls that the Amnesty Law "has a reasonable explanation of reasons in the preamble that identifies the constitutional purpose to which it responds, "to seek an improvement in coexistence and social cohesion, as well as an integration of the various political sensitivities, to overcome, as an objective of general interest, the social and political tensions generated with the so-called independence process in Catalonia."
