“Is it true that national sovereignty no longer resides in the Cortes? Well, during this term of office, I have to be honest: no,” Alberto Núñez Feijóo said this Wednesday in EsRadio. The leader of the PP acknowledged that these types of statements “represents the legitimacy of Congress,” but he defended himself by saying that “it is the Government that has taken away legitimacy from Congress.” “Because in Congress it doesn’t matter what we say. If they meet [el PSOE y sus socios parlamentarios] outside Congress during the plenary session…”, he argued. A day later, this Thursday, the leader of the PP insisted on questioning the Lower House. “We are beginning to see that it is more like the Parliament [de Cataluña]in which the internal operating rules were undermined in favor of the independence movement,” he said following complaining that the processing of the amnesty law is not stopped due to the report of the lawyers of the Justice Commission that expresses doubts regarding its constitutionality.
For the first time since he became president of the PP, Feijóo has set out to erode the legitimacy of Parliament, in which the PSOE and its partners have an absolute majority. In parallel to this strategy of questioning Congress, the PP is trying to shift the political focus to the Senate, the chamber that the Popular Party controls, where they will accelerate their activity to harass the Government of Pedro Sánchez.
Feijóo compared this Thursday the Congress of Deputies with the Parliament of Catalonia in the times of the process, trying to establish an equivalence between the report of the lawyers of the Justice Commission on the amnesty law and those signed by the jurists of the Catalan Chamber on the referendum and disconnection laws at the time of the independence challenge. However, the difference is noticeable. The report by the congressional jurists excludes a “glaring and obvious” contradiction of the amnesty law with the Constitution, despite expressing doubts regarding its unconstitutionality, but above all it does not advise once morest its parliamentary processing, unlike what they said in 2017. the lawyers of the Parliament on the laws of the process. “The admission for processing has meant ruling out that this initiative comes into clear contradiction with the Constitution and making possible parliamentary debate on it,” say the lawyers of the Justice Commission regarding the grace measure. On the other hand, the report of the Parliament’s jurists warned the Board in 2017 of the possible incursion of a crime if the referendum and transition laws were approved.
Feijóo did not go into another matter that the PP has used to erode the image of Congress, on which its parliamentary spokesperson, Miguel Tellado, has insisted, the alleged concealment of the report by the lawyers of the Justice commission, because it was dated January 10 and was delivered to the groups on the 16th. However, this same Thursday the person responsible for the report, Piedad García-Escudero, a lawyer in the Cortes since 1981 and sister of the former president of the PP Senate Pío García-Escudero, denied that accusation. The jurist intervened in the Justice Commission to explain that no one had withheld anything and that her report had been provided to all the commission’s speakers at the time the meeting was called, as is always done.
The PP has set out to erode the image of Congress, a Chamber in which the PSOE and its partners have the majority, in parallel with its strategy of shifting the political focus to the Senate, where it does have control. Feijóo has announced this week that the PP is going to use its absolute majority in the Upper House to force three monthly plenary sessions to be held from now on instead of two, in which they intend to harass the Government with appearances, initiatives and debates that be uncomfortable. The popular ones want the Senate to be like “the dentist” for the Government, sources from the leadership exemplify, that is, a hostile place that acts as a political counterweight to Congress, where it is the left that has power. The Popular Party’s plan is to invite jurists opposed to the amnesty to appear and create investigative commissions on issues that affect the Government. The PP has already used its majority to reform the Regulations and delay the processing of the amnesty law for two months.
Feijóo has raised the piston at the start of the year, furthermore, coinciding with the pre-campaign of the Galician elections and given the weakness reflected in the polls of his rival on the right, Vox, to whom the popular ones want to give the final blow. The popular leadership considers that the strategy of agitating in the streets once morest the amnesty was a success because it left Vox without space. It is, therefore, regarding continuing to reduce oxygen to the extreme right party, for which Feijóo toughens his speech and, if necessary, flirts with the delegitimization of the Congress of Deputies.
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