Amnesty International played a leading role in bringing down South Africa’s apartheid regime. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established in 1995, famously traded truth and justice by granting prosecutorial pardons to those fully willing to testify. For the commission’s chairman, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, pardons were an important element of the reconciliation process because of their promise to secure the truth and heal the social divisions created by apartheid. Amnesty, in the form of prisoner releases, was also part of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended three decades of violence in Northern Ireland, known as the Troubles.
A little-known but widespread political amnesty began Spain’s transition to full democracy after 40 years of authoritarian rule. The 1977 amnesty law targeted all political prisoners, including Catalan and Basque nationalists, as well as members of the Franco regime. This law is seen as a cornerstone of Spain’s democratization, and rightly so. It brought a symbolic end to the Spanish Civil War, a bloody conflict that ended in 1939, and enabled most of the political compromises found in the 1978 Constitution, including the integration of the Spanish monarchy into a democratic framework and the separation of church and state. It became. Article allowing the division of the provinces and Spanish territories into autonomous regions.
To be sure, the 1977 amnesty had major downsides. This was a series of political retaliations carried out by General Francisco Franco against the defeated Republicans at the end of the civil war, the so-called Spanish Holocaust. This helped to conceal the establishment of concentration camps, etc. Neglect and malnutrition. Spain finally addressed this dark history in 2007 by enacting a historical memory law that provides reparations to victims of the civil war and dictatorship. However, amnesty for the former regime was upheld. Everyone agreed that it was necessary to clear up the past.
It is unfortunate that many who would benefit from the Catalan amnesty law have shown no remorse for their actions. Puigdemont remains unrepentant and his party, Together for Catalonia (Jants), has not ruled out holding another illegal referendum. However, the most important beneficiaries of this new law are not the radical separatists who violated Spain’s constitution, but rather the majority of Catalans and Spaniards who want to end the separatist drama. They may not think so now, but this pardon is for them.
First, the amnesty law is likely to strengthen political stability in Catalonia. This has undermined the claims of some separatists that Madrid is incapable of tolerance or compromise, depriving them of a rallying cry and embracing negotiations as the only viable path to securing independence. It is certain to strengthen the moderate wing of the Catalan separatist movement. As support for Catalonia’s independence wanes, the pardon could also show the world that Spain, appalled by the violence that followed the referendum, is moving forward.