In May 2024, the Spanish National Assembly launched a controversial amnesty law for Catalan nationalists who had engaged in peaceful demonstrations and the unsuccessful 2017 referendum on Catalan independence.  Since its enactment, the law has been the subject of litigation in the Spanish courts and its implementation remains contentious.

To contribute to these debates, Fundación Alternativas, commissioned Mitchell Institute Deputy Director, Professor Mallinder to contribute a chapter on amnesties for political crimes to their annual publication Informe sobre la Democracia en España.

Fundación Alternativas is an independent centre for thought, discussion and development of ideas for political, economic, social and cultural change in Spanish and European society.

The report was launched at the Spanish Congress of Deputies (the lower house of Parliament) on 18 November 2024.  The recording of the event is available here.

Professor Mallinder’s chapter explores the complex role of amnesties in addressing political crimes.  It analyses how this category of offences is applied to diverse activities ranging from participating in armed insurgencies to engaging in non-violent dissent in non-conflict settings.  Drawing on a sample of 374 amnesties for political crimes that were enacted from 1990 to 2023, the report finds that contrary to observations drawing from extradition law that the political offence exception is disappearing, amnesties continue to be used by states to create exceptions in the application of criminal justice to political offences.  The report argues that the expansion of the counter-terrorism framework, which has eroded protections for combatants contained in international humanitarian law, and the growing criminalization of dissent have both served to expand the repressive use of criminal law, which amnesties for political offences often seek to remedy.

The report further analyses how the legality of amnesties for political crimes may depend the context in which the crimes were committed, the types of political offences covered by the amnesty, and how they intersect with the duty to prosecute international criminal and serious human rights violations and with human rights law protections for individual’s rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and political participation.

The Spanish version of the report is free to download here.  

The original English language version of the chapter is free to download from the PeaceRep website here. 

Professor Mallinder’s amnesties database research is funded by UK International Development through the PeaceRep project.

 

Professor Louise Mallinder

Professor Mallinder is the Deputy Director and Theme Lead for Legacy at the Mitchell Institute.  Louise is also Professor of Law in the School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast.  Her research interests relate to the fields of international human rights law, international criminal law, and law and politics in political transitions.