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Transitional or Post-transitional Justice? Recent Developments in the Spanish Case

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 13; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13608740902735000

1743-9612

Paloma Aguilar,

Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics

Abstract It is the intention of this article to promote a more dynamic and longer term view of transitional justice processes than is customary in this literature. An attempt will be made, by focusing on the recent and dramatic developments in the Spanish case, to identify the factors that explain why policies designed to compensate victims of human rights violations committed by the previous regime are susceptible to post-transition transformations. Although the focus will be on the Spanish experience, some of the questions asked and the explanations provided could be applied to other cases. Keywords: SpainDemocratisationTransitional JusticePolitics of MemorySpanish Civil WarFrancoist Dictatorship Acknowledgements I would like to thank Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca and Anna Bosco for their helpful comments on previous versions of this article. Notes [1] The already substantial academic literature on transitional justice includes several studies of the measures that countries adopt in order to deal with human rights violations committed in the past during democratisation processes (see Barahona de Brito et al. 2001 Brito Barahona de, A., González Enríquez, C. and Aguilar, P., eds. 2001. The Politics of Memory: Transitional Justice in Democratising Societies, Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]; De Greiff 2006 De Greiff, P., ed. 2006. "The Handbook of Reparations". Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Elster 2004 Elster, J. 2004. Closing the Books: Transitional Justice in Historical Perspective, New York: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 2006 Elster, J., ed. 2006. Retribution and Reparation in the Transition to Democracy, New York: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Kritz 1995 Kritz, N. J., ed. 1995. Transitional Justice: How Emerging Democracies Reckon with Former Regimes, Vol. 1, Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press. [Google Scholar]; McAdams 1997 McAdams, J., ed. 1997. Transitional Justice and the Rule of Law in New Democracies, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. [Google Scholar]; Teitel 2000 Teitel, R. G. 2000. Transitional Justice, New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]). [2] It is worth emphasising that the political science literature that stresses the difficulties that hinder institutional changes, as well as the path-dependency processes that institutions generate, has paid insufficient attention to this. [3] The idea of 'irruptions of memory', paraphrased here, is borrowed from Wilde (1999 Wilde, A. 1999. Irruptions of memory: expressive politics in Chile's transition to democracy. Journal of Latin American Studies, 31(2): 473–500. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). [4] A more detailed account of these policies can be found in Aguilar (2008 Aguilar, P. 2008. Políticas de la memoria y memorias de la política, Madrid: Alianza Editorial. [Google Scholar]). [5] Paradoxically, the amnesty of October 1977 did not stop ETA from killing (in fact, 1978–1980 would prove to be this terrorist organisation's most deadly period). Nor, having guaranteed the impunity of the dictatorship, did the amnesty prevent attempted military coup d'états. [6] Initially proposed on 1 December 2003 by Izquierda Unida (IU, the United Left coalition of left-wing parties) as part of a series of events to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the passage of the Constitution, this homage to the victims of the Franco regime was seconded by all the parliamentary groups, except the PP. [7] Law 52/2007 of 26 December, which 'recognises and broadens the rights and establishes measures in favour of those who suffered persecution or violence during the civil war and the dictatorship' (Official State Gazette, n. 310, 27 December 2007, p. 53410), will be referred to in this article as the 'Reparation Law', although it tends to be called, especially in the mass media, the 'Law of Historical Memory' (Ley de la Memoria Histórica). [8] This Commission was entrusted with the task of preparing a report on the state of the matter regarding compensation for victims, as well as the draft reparation bill. [9] The 'war children' were evacuated from Republican areas as Franco's Nationalist troops advanced, mainly to France, Belgium, Mexico, Great Britain and the former Soviet Union. It is estimated that around 30,000 children were evacuated during the conflict (see Alted 2003 Alted, A. 2003. Historia y memoria de los niños de la guerra (en el siglo XX), Madrid: Universidad de Mayores de Experiencia Recíproca. [Google Scholar]). [10] Executive Order (Orden Presidencial) of 16 December 2005. [11] Official Parliament Gazette, 8 September 2006, VIII Term of Office, n. 99-1 (Boletín Oficial de las Cortes Generales, 8 de septiembre de 2006, VIII Legislatura, núm. 99-1). [12] In spite of all their protests, the PP voted in favour of nearly one-third of the enacting terms. [13] Journal of Debates in the Congress of Deputies, 31 October 2007, VIII Term of Office, n. 296 (Diario de Sesiones del Congreso, 31 de octubre de 2007, VIII Legislatura, núm. 296). [14] The Military Division of the Supreme Court has refused, on every single occasion, except in one very exceptional case (that of an individual tried twice for the same crime), to review the judgments of Francoist tribunals. It has turned down the appeal for judicial review on no less than 42 occasions (Gil 2009 Gil, A. 2009. La justicia transicional en España. De la amnistía a la memoria histórica, Barcelona: Atelier. [Google Scholar]). Marc Carrillo has disagreed with the Supreme Court's actions and has argued that 'before dismissing the appeal, it should exhaust the probative procedure if there is a scintilla of evidence, and not reject the appeal on the grounds that the evidence submitted is insufficient' (quoted by Gil 2009 Gil, A. 2009. La justicia transicional en España. De la amnistía a la memoria histórica, Barcelona: Atelier. [Google Scholar]). [15] 'Our Constitutional Court has already confirmed the impossibility of applying the Constitution to judicial acts prior to its entry into force that have ceased to have effect' (Gil 2009 Gil, A. 2009. La justicia transicional en España. De la amnistía a la memoria histórica, Barcelona: Atelier. [Google Scholar]). [16] 'Desmemoria histórica', El País, 5 January 2007. [17] See Público, 20 October 2007. [18] In this article, I only focus on the most recent and path-breaking initiatives. For some of their antecedents, see Aguilar (2004 Aguilar, P. 2004. Guerra civil, franquismo y democracia. Claves de Razón Práctica, : 24–33. [Google Scholar]) and Davis (2005 Davis, M. 2005. Is Spain recovering its memory? Breaking the Pacto del Olvido. Human Rights Quarterly, 27(3): 858–880. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The later suggests that the tipping point regarding memory issues in Spain was 'the arrest of Pinochet in London in October 1998', which, as is well known, was the consequence of an initiative by a Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón (Davis 2005 Davis, M. 2005. Is Spain recovering its memory? Breaking the Pacto del Olvido. Human Rights Quarterly, 27(3): 858–880. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], p. 868). Blakeley (2005 Blakeley, G. 2005. Digging up Spain's past: consequences of truth and reconciliation. Democratization, 12(1): 44–59. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], p. 46) and Encarnación (2008 Encarnación, O. 2008. Reconciliation after democratisation: coping with the past in Spain. Political Science Quarterly, 123(3): 435–459. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], pp. 447–448) also point to the importance of Pinochet's arrest for understanding later changes in Spanish transitional justice policies. [19] In previous research, I have empirically demonstrated that the generation born in the postwar period, the same generation that played the leading role in the transition, is the one that is most reluctant to continue offering recognition to the victims of the Civil War (Aguilar 2008 Aguilar, P. 2008. Políticas de la memoria y memorias de la política, Madrid: Alianza Editorial. [Google Scholar]). With respect to the importance of generational change to account for recent developments in transitional justice issues, another researcher has pointed out that Rodríguez Zapatero's generation 'is less directly dependent than previous PSOE governments … on the shared story of the transition' (Davis 2005 Davis, M. 2005. Is Spain recovering its memory? Breaking the Pacto del Olvido. Human Rights Quarterly, 27(3): 858–880. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], p. 879). Finally, Encarnación (2008 Encarnación, O. 2008. Reconciliation after democratisation: coping with the past in Spain. Political Science Quarterly, 123(3): 435–459. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], p. 455) maintains that: 'Zapatero is part of a new generation of politicians not beholden to the national compromises of the democratic transition.' [20] Official Parliament Gazette, 29 November 2002, VII Term of Office, Series D, n. 448 (Boletín Oficial de las Cortes Generales, 29 de noviembre de 2002, VII Legislatura, Serie D, núm. 448). [21] According to Gálvez (2006 Gálvez, S. 2006. El proceso de recuperación de la 'memoria histórica' en España: una aproximación a los movimientos sociales por la memoria. International Journal of Iberian Studies, 19(1): 25–51. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 34), the number of associations devoted to these issues rose from 30 to nearly 170 between 2003 and 2005. [22] Both Davis (2005 Davis, M. 2005. Is Spain recovering its memory? Breaking the Pacto del Olvido. Human Rights Quarterly, 27(3): 858–880. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Blakeley (2005 Blakeley, G. 2005. Digging up Spain's past: consequences of truth and reconciliation. Democratization, 12(1): 44–59. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) reflect on the limits of transitional periods to pursue memory politics. [23] A number of Public International Law experts have pointed out several other limitations. In this respect, see Chinchón (2007 Chinchón, J. 2007. El viaje a ninguna parte: memoria, leyes, historia y olvido sobre la guerra civil y el pasado autoritario en España. Revista del Instituto Interamericano de Derechos Humanos (IIDH), : 119–233. [Google Scholar], 2008 Chinchón, J. 2008. "Transición española y justicia transicional: ¿Qué papel juega el ordenamiento jurídico internacional en un proceso de transición? A propósito de la coherencia, buena fe y otros principios de derecho internacional postergados en la transición política española". In La memoria como conflicto. Memoria e historia de la guerra civil y el franquismo, monographic dossier of Entelequia. Revista Interdisciplinar, no. 7 Edited by: Gálvez, S. and Torres, J. R. 331–354. [Google Scholar]). The ARMH, meanwhile, expresses its dissatisfaction regarding the fact that the exhumation of common graves is still an initiative undertaken by private individuals rather than a duty incumbent upon the state. [24] In Blakeley's words: '[T]he balance of power established at the time of transition is not set in stone. Pacts that may be necessary, and indeed laudable, at the time of transition, may unravel later on in the process of democratisation' (Blakeley 2005 Blakeley, G. 2005. Digging up Spain's past: consequences of truth and reconciliation. Democratization, 12(1): 44–59. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], p. 56). [25] Though the future of this judicial initiative is not very promising, given the opposition of the Public Prosecutor Office at the National Court, it is nonetheless very important that a Spanish judge has appealed to international legislation to try to condemn the abuses of the Franco dictatorship.