The president of the Lower House has refused to postpone the plenary session in which Congress debates the reform of the Criminal Code, especially crimes such as sedition and embezzlement. The PP, Vox, and Ciudadanos have requested that she do so, but Batet has said Parliament’s independence prevents her from doing so.
The debate on the legal reform began this afternoon after 3 p.m. when it was already known that the Constitutional Court would postpone its decision on whether or not to suspend that parliamentary vote until next Monday. Despite this, the right-wing parties took the floor and demanded that the Plenary of the Chamber be paralyzed right away.
The leader of Ciudadanos, Inés Arrimadas, has come to speak of “irregularities” in congress and has compared this situation with the one she experienced in the Catalan Parliament during the transition. She told the president of Congress to “absolutely not allow it.”
The parliamentary spokesperson for the PP, Cuca Gamarra, has warned Batet that “a debate and a vote in plenary should not begin when the previous procedures have not been resolved. There’s still no decision on Amparo. The opposite has been said by Batet.”
Batet then took the floor to announce that the Plenary would go ahead, since “Congress has not been formally informed of a filing of an appeal or decision of the Constitutional Court. There’s no reason for them to delay legislative procedure according to House rules.”
With Spain in complete chaos, Vox spokesperson Pablo Batet has made a direct defense of “Parliamentary autonomy” and of the “legislative power” of Congress. He did so by saying that “the parliamentary procedure and debate assigned to you and your democratically legitimate mandate.” He also said, as mentioned before, that he didn’t want to see this decision affect the plenary session of Parliament. This Vox Parliament spokesman declared it will continue with its agenda, ending with the scheduled plenary session that was previously held.
