Euskadi: AuB ban puts legal principles under attack
01 May 2003
The drift towards authoritarianism, under the pretext of combating ETA's violence, is bringing into question a large part of the legal framework erected during the political transition that followed the Franco regime. The law on political parties criminalised the Basque political organisation Batasuna - which was accused of being a front for ETA or even of belonging to ETA's infrastructure - and effectively made it illegal. Later acts focused on preventing nationalist left candidates from standing in the last municipal elections. The AuB electoral platform, and another 245 electoral lists, were invalidated by summary procedures in which, within short, peremptory fixed deadlines, judges decided who could and could not stand. The decisions were based on police reports, which were the only source of information. Guilt was confirmed by evidence that a candidate had been on the election lists of any of the political organisations from the nationalist left (Batasuna, Euskal Herritarrok, Herri Batasuna) at any time. Apart from the fact that this procedure occasionally resulted in the exclusion of candidates with no affinity to the nationalist left, it also disenfranchised an entire social sector which was denied the possibility of expressing its electoral choice. By any reckoning, it stretches legality to the point where it becomes a caricature.
The nationalist left responded by campaigning for votes for the annulled lists. It printed ballot papers, so that it would be possible to count their support accurately without including spoiled papers in the total. A Guarantees Commission (Comisión de Garantías) was set up, formed by trades unionists and members of social or cultural organisations, with four objectives: 1. To produce a legal study on how the criminalisation process infringed fundamental rights and freedoms envisaged in European norms; 2. To participate in the election campaign in order to present a formal statement on the restrictions imposed on freedom of association, expression and political information that these election candidates may suffer; 3. To guarantee an accurate counting of the votes gained by the disqualified candidates and to publish them; 4. To submit the documentation to different organisations and associations in Euskal Herria, Spain and internationally. To count the votes, the Guarantees Commission put together a list of 3,500 observers and established a public protocol. The observers reached all of the existing polling stations without significant problems. Among those who were part of the Guarantees Commission, were Lloyd Quinan from the Scottish parliament and Gerry McKermond, a Derry councillor and member of Sinn Fein.
The electoral lists linked to AuB obtained 153,497 votes, which would correspond to 579 councillors. Only 182 have been recognised, the rest belonging to lists that were disqualified. These figures suggest their share of the vote - at a time when, ETA had called an end to its ceasefire and had suffered a considerable downturn in support - held up. One way in which this can be interpreted is that the nationalist left is a structural phenomenon in Euskal Herria. While signs of erosion in its support can be perceived, it is difficult to imagine that there can be a viable solution to the problems of the Basque country without accommodating the organisations, and aspirations of their supporters, within the political structures that are customary for democracies.
Another significant confrontation has been developing between Basque institutions and the Spanish judiciary. After the criminalisation of Batasuna, the Supreme Court ordered the president of the Basque parliament to "bring into effect the dissolution" of the parliamentary group formed by former Batasuna representatives in the Basque parliament through "the Mesa (cabinet) of that House". As the seats do not belong to the parliamentary group, there is no scope for the suspension of parliamentarians exercising their func