Amnesty as a (new) cause for extinction of criminal liability: problematic aspects of Spanish Organic Law 1/2024, of June 10.

Abstract

In the year 2024, the Spanish Penal Code illuminated a (new) cause for the extinction of criminal responsibility (amnesty). The approval of said Organic Law was an historical event, at a legal level (due to its magnitude and context in which it occurred). Although the Law does not focus solely on the area of criminal liability, it should be said that most of its content falls on this matter. That is why in the first part of this work I will limit myself to examining from a more theoretical level the provisions of the law from a constitutional, technical-legal and political-criminal perspective. Also paying attention to the legislative procedure used for its enactment. My position, as I already stated, is contrary to this law (even with nuances). But, I insist, I have not made a journalistic comment, nor have I prepared this publication with the aim of serving as propaganda for a certain ideology (although this amnesty, like criminal law itself, is loaded with it). What I submit to judgment in this contribution is the legal translation of a certain political vision that has opted (or has been “forced” for electoral reasons) to try to “provide a solution” to the situation that has been experienced in Catalonia for some time. In contrast, in the second part of this text I will analyze the problems that arise around the application of the amnesty to the crimes of embezzlement and terrorism.