The Plenary of the Constitutional Court (TC) has admitted to process the appeal filed by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, in relation to several articles of the Valencian Community, which repealed the previous law of democratic memory of the Generalitat governed by the left, and has suspended some precepts of the Valencian norm, approved by the PP and Vox.
Specifically, the High Court has suspended the validity and application of several articles of Law 5/2024, of July 26, of Concordia of the Valencian Community, from the date of filing of the appeal (April 29) for the parts of the process and from the day the suspension in the Official State Gazette for third parties appears published.
The president of the Government filed an appeal of unconstitutionality in relation to articles 1, section 3, which is given the same regime for the protection and recognition of the victims of the Second Republic and terrorism that referred to by Law 20/2022 on Democratic Memory of the Government.
Likewise, article 2 appealed on the “rights of victims and their relatives”, where “the rights to the victims that this law” and that mentions the activities of inquiry, location, exhumation and identification of the missing persons are recognized and protects; the repair and preservation of his memory, “avoiding any attempt of revenge or manipulation of our history that encourages the confrontation between Spaniards”; the access to the documents held by the Valencian public administrations for the investigation of the events that surrounded the acts of violence described; or the investigation of the prosecutable criminal acts made against the victims of terrorism that would not have been resolved.
Likewise, article 3 was used on the Valencian Unit of Concord, with subsection in sections 1 and 5, which mention the obligations established in the second article; and the second transitory disposition, which indicates that the processing of the democratic memory procedures initiated and not completed at the entry into force of this law will decide automatically, with the exception of the exhumation processes.
The appeal was also filed against the unique repeal provision, which repealed Law 14/2017, of November 10, on democratic memory and for the coexistence of the Valencian Community, and all its development regulations; He dissolved the commissions, organizations and institutions of a regional public nature that would have been created as a result of the aforementioned law and repealed all those provisions of equal or lower rank whose content opposes the provisions of this law.
The TC, after the government has invoked article 161.2 of the Constitution, has suspended the validity and application of said precepts from the date of filing of the appeal (last April 29) for the parts of the process and from the day the suspension in the Official State Gazette for third parties appears published.
In his appeal, the President of the Government claimed that the contested articles “could be opposite” to articles 10 and 15 of the Constitution, due to the impairment of the rights of the victims, and raised violation of state powers established in articles 149.1.1, 149.1.6 and 149.1.30 of the Constitution, as well as the duty of collaboration.
