Thursday, March 28

The Government responds to Iceta that the continuity of the legislature depends on reforming sedition

With the reform of the crime of sedition, the Government “risks the continuity of the legislature.” With this forcefulness they responded from the department of the Presidency of the Govern to the words of the Minister of Culture, Miquel Iceta, who this weekend in an interview in The newspaper He assured that reaching an agreement on this crime would not be easy. “It’s a question of political will”, they reply from Laura Vilagrà’s ministry, “they have already seen that when they play PP, the right overtakes them on all sides”.

The words of the leader of the PSC have not gone down well in the Republican ranks, who understand that the Socialists are moving away from an agreement that is key to them. In the aforementioned interview, Iceta assured that in no case could there be talk of eliminating the crime of sedition, but of a reform. The minister also considered that “going against the Constitution and the territorial integrity of Spain must be a crime”, something that he understood that for the independentistas it would not be “easy to accept”.

The Government has responded to Iceta’s words to recall that the president already issued a warning at the last press conference of the course, when he stated that the “dejudicialization” should take place before the end of 2022, that is, during the semester that lies ahead after the holidays. These same sources add that an agreement to reform the crime of sedition is possible as long as they work to achieve it, something that they believe the government has not done so far.

“In any case”, they insist from the Presidency department, “agreeing on anything with the Miquel Iceta of 2022 is always difficult, he has forgotten the principles he had in 2007 when he defended self-determination”.

The PSC, whose representative at the table is Iceta, had been in favor of reforming the crime of sedition before the last session of the dialogue table, two weeks ago. But it was precisely at this meeting where the differences in approach between the socialist part of the Government and the Govern were verified, which propose reforms of the penal type in different directions. While for the ERC or the comuns, sedition without violence should disappear from the criminal code, the PSOE’s approach is more aimed at introducing a criminal type that more clearly contemplates events such as those that took place in October 2017 in Catalonia.

These differences have led the Government to rule out sedition reform for now, although they are willing to examine other alternatives. In recent months, both the ERC and the comuns have pointed out the possibility of dealing with various crimes, one of the most important being sedition, but also others such as disobedience or even non-profit embezzlement. Changes in the penal code in any of these types could help both the independentistas already convicted and those awaiting trial.



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