Several dozen police officers who have been investigated for allegations of using violence on voters during a 2017 referendum could also benefit from the clemency measure.
Oriol Junqueras, leader of the pro-independence Catalan Republican Left (ERC), said approval of the amnesty marked “an important day for democracy.”
The parliament’s lower house rejected the bill in January, when Puigdemont’s Junts per Catalunya party voted against it, on the grounds that it left him and others vulnerable to prosecution for terrorism, a charge he is being investigated for due to his alleged involvement in protests in Barcelona in 2019. Junts and the government negotiated a revised version of the law in an effort to address those concerns.
This time, Junts voted in favor of the bill, along with the Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, his coalition partners Sumar, the ERC, and Basque nationalists.
Although the opposition Popular Party (PP) has a majority in the Senate, it cannot block the legislation, which the PP says is unconstitutional and gives Catalan nationalists preferential treatment. It can only delay its passage. The bill is expected to return to the lower house for a final vote in mid-May.
Sánchez has presented the legislation, known as the Amnesty Law for Institutional, Political and Social Normalization in Catalonia, as an attempt to reduce tensions in the northeastern region of the country. It follows his government’s pardoning of nine jailed separatist leaders in 2021.
