{"id":66230,"date":"2026-07-16T17:50:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T15:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=66230"},"modified":"2026-07-18T19:46:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T17:46:45","slug":"the-amusing-arguments-of-the-cjeu-to-endorse-sanchezs-infamous-amnesty-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2026\/07\/16\/the-amusing-arguments-of-the-cjeu-to-endorse-sanchezs-infamous-amnesty-law\/","title":{"rendered":"The amusing arguments of the CJEU to endorse S\u00e1nchez's infamous amnesty law"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has today washed its hands of one of the biggest attacks on the rule of law in Spain.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2025\/06\/26\/amnesty-the-greatest-act-of-corruption-in-the-entire-history-of-democracy-in-spain\/\">Amnesty, the greatest act of corruption in the entire history of democracy in Spain<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2025\/11\/13\/the-alarming-circular-argument-of-one-of-the-eus-advocates-general-on-amnesty\/\">The alarming circular argument of one of the EU's advocates general on amnesty<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p><big>An attack on the rule of law that was rejected by numerous entities within the judicial sphere<\/big><\/p>\n<p>This Thursday, <a href=\"https:\/\/curia.europa.eu\/site\/upload\/docs\/application\/pdf\/2026-07\/cp260112es.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">the CJEU has endorsed the Spanish amnesty law<\/a> with which <strong>Pedro S\u00e1nchez granted criminal impunity to his separatist allies in exchange for the votes necessary for his re-election<\/strong>, a serious attack on the rule of law perpetrated for reasons of pure political convenience for the government. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/11\/11\/spain-the-list-of-the-institutions-that-reject-the-socialist-attack-against-the-rule-of-law\/\">This earned the rejection of numerous Spanish institutions<\/a>, including <strong>26 entities in the judicial field, including the Supreme Court, the 17 High Courts of Justice and the 4 largest judges' associations<\/strong>, in addition to all the prosecutors' associations.<\/p>\n<p>This outcome was predictable after the release of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2025\/11\/13\/the-alarming-circular-argument-of-one-of-the-eus-advocates-general-on-amnesty\/\">the two reports by the Advocate General of the European Union (EU)<\/a> on this amnesty in November 2025. These reports <strong>considered S\u00e1nchez's law not to be a self-amnesty law simply because it was not issued by an \"authoritarian power\"<\/strong>, a circular argument that would allow any political power in Europe to do as it pleases, since <strong>no EU member state is an authoritarian regime<\/strong>. At least not yet. With today's rulings by the CJEU, Spain is closer to becoming one. <strong>The CJEU usually adopts the arguments of the Advocate General of the EU<\/strong>, which saves it a lot of time, effort and conflict when making a decision.<\/p>\n<p><big>Does one abstract argument make another argument less abstract?<\/big><\/p>\n<p>If the EU Advocate General already wielded a dangerous circular argument to endorse that law, <strong>the arguments offered today by the CJEU are certainly amusing<\/strong>. These arguments are set out in <a href=\"https:\/\/curia.europa.eu\/site\/upload\/docs\/application\/pdf\/2026-07\/cp260112es.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">the press release<\/a> published today by the court. On the one hand, the CJEU considers that <em>\"<strong>the abstract definition of the acts included in this exclusion from amnesty<\/strong>, and in particular the fact that the amnesty law does not specify in detail the exact nature of all these acts nor set a threshold of seriousness for them, <strong>does not violate the requirements of the principle of legal certainty<\/strong>.\" <\/em><\/p>\n<p>The CJEU considers that <em>\"the aforementioned exclusion provision refers to legal concepts of criminal law, such as <strong>intent, causation, and the gravity of a human rights violation<\/strong>, which should not pose application difficulties for the competent courts.\"<\/em> <strong>In other words, one abstract definition makes another less abstract<\/strong>, simply because the problem remains in the hands of the very same courts that asked the CJEU to rule on this law. <strong>It is outrageous to see such a lax attitude toward political power in an EU that is obsessively strict with its citizens<\/strong>, regulating even the smallest aspects of our lives, dictating even the design of bottle caps or pillows.<\/p>\n<p><big>Does giving preferential treatment to government partners in exchange for their votes respect the principle of equality?<\/big><\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, the CJEU states that <em>\"<strong>the Spanish amnesty law respects the principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination<\/strong>, since, in light of its express purpose of promoting political reconciliation solely within the context of a particular political movement, <strong>the crimes committed in that context and the crimes committed in other contexts cannot be considered comparable.<\/strong>\"<\/em> This is utterly absurd. The government that made a specific distinction for the crimes committed by Catalan separatists in the 2017 coup attempt was precisely an ally of those separatists. <strong>What the S\u00e1nchez government did was grant preferential treatment to its allies because it needed their votes<\/strong>, and now the CJEU says that this does not violate the principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination.<\/p>\n<p>I admit I couldn't help but laugh when I read those arguments. <strong>One would expect more serious reasoning from an institution like the CJEU<\/strong>, especially considering that this amnesty undermines several of the foundations of democracy in Spain and that European institutions cost all citizens of member states a fortune.<\/p>\n<p><big>Laxity for a socialist government and obsessive bureaucracy for the citizens<\/big><\/p>\n<p><strong>That said, I won't say I'm disappointed, because the degradation of EU institutions has been evident for some time now.<\/strong> They have been very strict with conservative governments like those of Poland and Hungary, but now <strong>they are washing their hands of one of the biggest attacks on the rule of law in Spain, an attack committed by a socialist government<\/strong>, one of the political groups that make up the current coalition controlling the European Commission. <strong>In the end, the entire bureaucratic apparatus created in the EU serves to approve the abuses of a socialist government while citizens must comply with all kinds of directives<\/strong>, a regulatory maze that subjects Europe to political and bureaucratic excesses that weigh down our economy and erode our freedoms.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>With this ruling by the CJEU, <strong>the EU institutions are sending a clear message to Spaniards: we are alone in the face of a corrupt and despotic government<\/strong>. This doesn't change our situation, obviously. We were already alone before. What does change is the perception that many Spaniards will now have of the European Union. <strong>The politicians of the social-democratic consensus<\/strong> (which includes both the Socialists and the European People's Party, who are now indistinguishable in many of their ideological positions) <strong>have created an EU that increasingly resembles the free and democratic Europe they promised us.<\/strong> Then they shouldn't complain about the rise of \"Euroscepticism.\" They themselves are fueling it.<\/p>\n<p>---<\/p>\n<p><small>Photo: Efe.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has today washed its hands of one of the biggest attacks on the rule of law in Spain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10398],"tags":[18211,24744,10454,2721,10796],"class_list":["post-66230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spain","tag-coup-detat-of-2017-in-catalonia","tag-court-of-justice-of-the-european-union-cjeu","tag-european-union","tag-pedro-sanchez-castejon","tag-socialism"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-11-13 23:36:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}