Compile in a book an updated analysis of the legal regime and functioning of the chamber
Lawyer Joan Ridao has stated that he hopes there will be a «correction» of the doctrine of the Constitutional Court (TC) regarding the Parliament of Catalonia and other chambers in the coming years.
He explained in an interview with Europa Press as a result of the publication of the book «Dret Parlamentari de Catalunya» (Atelier), a systematic and updated analysis of the legal regime and functioning of the parliament, describing the basic functions of the Catalan legislative chamber, its internal organization, and parliamentary procedures.
According to Ridao, a significant part of the legal regulation and certainty related to the functions of the parliament has been modified as a result of interpretative criteria «and decisions taken by the TC.
Thus, he believes that the approval in the Catalan chamber of declarative initiatives or with merely political significance was altered by the intervention of the TC because «they became legal effects» and the turning point for all this was in 2014 with the challenge of the right to decide declaration.
«When the TC says that this can have legal efficiency and pursues it, and not only pursues it and expels it from the order, but can also take initiatives for criminal justice, this has bewildered the functioning of the last years in parliament,» he explained.
In other chambers
However, he pointed out that this has also happened in other legislative chambers, starting with the Congress with «certain decisions that have affected the table regarding the qualification of parliamentary initiatives.»
«What cannot be done in a preliminary phase is to attribute to the table a responsibility that does not belong to it. This has happened in Congress, obviously in Parliament, or for example in Congress with the incompatibility of Alberto Rodríguez,» he said.
According to Ridao, it is one thing to control a law once it has been approved and another to challenge and declare a political declaration unconstitutional: «Parliament, if you want, can decide that the Earth is flat. Obviously, this has no legal consequences, and for this reason, it should not be pursued.»
Although he maintains that Catalan parliamentary law is modern, he admitted that it has been affected by the jurisprudence of the TC in recent years after «the vicissitudes and penalties of the political situation and derived from the» process «, beyond the Constitution and the statute.
However, he argued that the regulation of the parliament «is probably the most modern and updated» in the rest of Spain, highlighting the changes made in 2005 to rationalize parliamentary work and give more prominence to minorities, as well as highlighting the open debate regarding the status of the parliamentarian, the prerogatives, and the rights that a speaker has before other political powers.
Expedite procedures
Another issue raised by the table is the need to expedite legislative procedures, a «19th-century matrix,» and he believes that the Parliament is losing centrality in favor of the government because, in his opinion, the latter is using the decree law extensively, which should be exceptional.
«The law is being resorted to single reading. And another pathology in legislative procedure is the BUSE laws,» said Ridao, who believes that banalization also needs to be improved, as, in his opinion, it is being done with control sessions when it was used not as a mechanism to obtain information to control the government, he regretted.
The former Republican deputy in the parliament and Congress also argued the need to allocate more resources and means to the Catalan chamber, the expense of which represents «only 0.1% of the Generalitat budget.»
«Providing the Parliament with means of communication, which means options, experts, jurists, political scientists, and sociologists, as in most parliaments, can help, at a time when there has been a loss of political knowledge or experience, to do better work and legislate better,» he said.
Hate Speech
The tension between the freedom of expression of parliamentarians and certain hate speeches is another aspect that, according to Ridao, we must address because «there have been expressions that have sometimes, depending on each one’s moral compass, been perceived as offensive or contrary to the decorum of the chamber.»
According to Ridao, the doctrine of the European Court of Human Rights regarding the inviolability of parliamentarians is «very generous and liberal, in the sense that it allows practically any type of expression in the parliamentary sphere.»
Nevertheless, the lawyer makes it clear that there is a limit that, in his opinion, should not be crossed: the hate crime, for which he has called for distinguishing some expressions directed at minority groups from criticisms directed at a specific part or person.
And although he acknowledges that it is a delicate issue and that there is no definitive solution because «it depends on the moral compass of each one,» he believes that it should start with the self-control of the deputies, beyond the control that the president of the parliament can exercise based on the powers assigned to him in the chamber’s regulations.
Amnesty
After the TC’s endorsement of the Amnesty Law, Ridao regretted that certain judicial bodies have been driven «by their political impetus and even by their patriotic pride, which has evidenced a political and militant activism that does not correspond to them.»
«The judges must apply the law of the democratic legislator, so any temptation not to apply or delay the application of such a law is regrettable,» he concluded.
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