The Senate approves the change in article 49 to recognize people with disabilities
The Senate gave the green light this Thursday to the reform of the Constitution to replace the term “diminished” with “persons with disabilities” in article 49. This is the third constitutional reform of the supreme norm, a historic demand of the social movements that defend the rights of people with functional diversity. This modification, however, has meant the end of another aspiration of Valencian citizens in recent years: the recovery of civil rights.
The Senate Bureau rejects the Compromise amendment to include Valencian civil law in the Constitution
The Senate Bureau, with the majority vote of the PP and the PSOE, rejected this Wednesday the amendment presented by Compromís to incorporate Valencian civil law into the Constitution. The amendment, which had already been rejected in the debate in Congress, sought to add an additional provision that would recognize Valencian civil law as historical law. The first vice-president of the Senate, Javier Maroto, has argued that the legal services have pointed out that amendments that do not refer to the article of the Constitution that is to be reformed cannot be admitted.
The constitutional reform will not go through a referendum
The reform of article 49 of the Constitution has followed the same procedure as the reform of article 135, approved in 2011, which established the public deficit limit. In both cases, Congress and the Senate have closed the door to any other amendment that does not have a direct relationship with the article subject to reform. This contrasts with other legislative proposals, where amendments that expand their scope are usually allowed. A period of 15 days is now open in which parliamentarians can request the calling of a referendum to ratify the constitutional reform, although this possibility is very remote, since 10% of deputies or senators are required and the majority parties have opposed it.
Compromís regrets the Board’s decision and recalls social support for Valencian civil law
The Compromís senator, Enric Morera, who registered the amendment drawn up by the association Jurists Valencians, has criticized the decision of the Senate Bureau: “We celebrate the step taken today and we support it”, but “the senators have the right to vote and express themselves”, he said. The senator recalled that the initiative “has the support of the entire Valencian society, including Cermi”. The proposal promoted by the group of lawyers, supported by the political parties – except the extreme right – and with the broad support of the Valencian civil society has seen its hopes extinguished as the debate progressed. Both the PP and the PSOE pledged that the reform would only affect the term “decreased” and ruled out any other option.
