The PS calls for the integration of a National Human Rights Institution
The party adapts the Proposal of the Reasoner of the Citizen so that the Law will soon see the light
The social democratic party explained last Monday the amendments they have presented to the proposal of the Citizen’s Reasoner Law, a draft law proposed by the same party, which in the face of the will to end up approving the law they have selfamended to adapt it to the Government criteria. The deputy president, Susanna Vela, detailed that last February 2nd they entered the law proposal, a text with the intention of modernizing and updating the institution of the Reasoner in accordance with the international standards of the Venice and Paris Commissions. Now the group is entering the process of 11 amendments to «adopt the institution of the Paris Principles so that it can be a national human rights institution», as well as including the modifications given by the Executive’s decision.
In this sense, the president of the social democratic parliamentary group, Judith Casal stated that «there are two significant aspects at a political level» on which the Government has not ended up agreeing. The first of the cases is the proposal of the PS that the Reasoner could impose suspensive effects on the complaints he receives regarding deadlines or to appeal against these administrative acts: «We thought it was a change that was good, because, what we were trying to do was to prevent those conflicts that the Reasoner through his intermediation could finish resolving from reaching justice», explained Casal while adding that the Government did not see it the same way.
The other component is the demand to legitimize the Citi
zen’s Reasoner so that he can raise questions of constitutionality about laws and regulations directly. At this point, the Government made a criterion, and for this reason from the PS they decided to make an amendment to this legitimation and allow the Reasoner to bring a specific issue before the Government or General Council so that the parliamentary groups can do the work to file constitutional appeals. In this sense, Casal stated that «we would prefer the Reasoner to be independent and have enough tools to be able to do it independently without being conditioned by the political will of the government or the parliamentary groups».
Finally, Casal also presented the claim to adapt the Law of the Citizen Advocate to the so-called Paris Principles, so that the institution assumes the powers of a National Human Rights Institution for the promotion and protection of these. The social democrats propose that this institution be located within that of the Citizen’s Reasoner in order to have a double guarantee of monitoring compliance with international treaties and achieve the recommendations formulated by different United Nations Committees.
The social democratic parliamentary group renounces two of the main proposals he had made