The Popular Party has requested this Thursday the appearance before the Constitutional Commission in the Senate of “relevant” personalities of the Transition, such as former ministers Rodolfo Martín Villa or Rafael Arias Salgado, to issue their opinion on the Law of Democratic Memory approved in the Congress with the rejection of the rights and that will be debated in the Upper House at the turn of the summer.
Congress approves the Democratic Memory Law with the opposition of the right
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Specifically, they demand the presence of Rodolfo Martín Villa –a high-ranking position in the Franco regime and minister with Arias Navarro and Suárez–; Rafael Arias Salgado, Marcelino Oreja Aguirre; Soledad Becerril Bustamante; Juan Antonio Ortega and Diaz-Ambrona; and Carmela Garcia-Moreno Teixeira.
According to the spokesperson for the PP in the Commission and general secretary of the popular in the Upper House, Amelia Salanueva, the Democratic Memory bill contains “substantive flaws and vices that disqualify it as a truly democratic law.” “It is not only an insult to the victims of ETA terrorism, but also an insult to all Spaniards”, she pointed out.
In a statement, the PP maintains that the bill represents “a frontal attack” on the constitutional regime and an attempt to “delegitimize” the Transition and the pact between Spaniards.
Martín Villa, prosecuted for the repression during the Transition
Rodolfo Martín Villa, who was a high-ranking official in the Franco regime and a minister with Arias Navarro and Suárez, was charged in 2014 in Argentina with crimes of aggravated homicide in a context of crimes against humanity after the so-called ‘Argentine Complaint’ filed by several victims and relatives of victims of the repression during the Transition.
Among other crimes, Judge María Servini attributed possible responsibility for the massacre in Vitoria on March 3, 1976, in which five workers were murdered at the hands of the Armed Police, as well as for the murder of Germán Rodríguez during the Sanfermines de 1978.
In October 2021, Judge Servini went a step further and decided to prosecute the former minister, but two months later, an Argentine court admitted Martín Villa’s appeal and annulled the prosecution, although it did not order the case to be filed.
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