Null convictions, no compensation. Under the state of war declared on 28 July 1936 and maintained until March 1948, anyone suspected of having harmed the «redemption movement» by act or omission could be punished for military rebellion. Between 1936 and the end of 1938, 30,224 people were tried and 3,189 sentenced to death, as historian Paul Preston reports in his book The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in 20th Century Spain. The 2007 law declared Franco`s courts illegitimate, but it did not remove the convictions because the government of then-Prime Minister Josã© Luis Rodrãguez Zapatero feared that victims could seek redress. The new bill declares null and void all convictions and sanctions pronounced by Franco`s courts, but also excludes the possibility of seeking compensation. In summary, the final success of the legislation depends largely on parliamentary negotiations on budget allocation and pressure from non-governmental organizations and civil societies. The legislation is progressive and recognizes the responsibility of the Spanish state for the crimes of the dictator Franco. But its implementation and ambitions do not correspond proportionally to the realities of the situation. It should therefore be noted that the challenges facing Spain are not unique in nature; Italy has had a difficult relationship with its past, and the challenges are not much different from those facing the United States in the fight against slavery. The memory and language of the Civil War still hangs over Spanish politics and society everywhere, a litmus test of political ideals that influences the contemporary political debates that continue in the Spanish Congress. Even if the memory fades, the ideas generated by these memories live longer than expected.
Quote: Vishwajeet Deshmukh and Devansh Parekh, The Spanish Democratic Memory Law: Theory and Implementation, JURIST – Student Commentary, October 21, 2020, www.jurist.org/commentary/2020/10/deshmukh-parekh-spanish-democratic-memory-law/. During the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939, about 35,000 international volunteers, including about 2,500 Britons, fought in the International Brigade. Given the age of the veterans, the offer of citizenship is aimed at a very limited population that has been able to benefit from the 1996 and 2007 decrees. The act also provides citizenship to veterans of the International Brigade. This offer of citizenship was granted by a Royal Decree of January 1996, but on the condition that the veteran lose his original citizenship. However, the 2007 law already provided for Spanish citizenship for veterans of the International Brigade. Thus, the law was criticized for not extending citizenship to the descendants of veterans of the International Brigade, as there were reports that the descendants of veterans would receive Spanish citizenship to honor the contribution of their ancestors to the country. Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Pablo Iglesias said in his tweet: «Descendants of members of the International Brigades who fought for freedom and against fascism in Spain will be entitled to Spanish citizenship. It was time for this government to say to these heroes and heroines of democracy: Thank you for coming. » Exhumations, registers and DNA database. It would be physically possible to recover 20,000 to 25,000 bodies in the next four to five years, according to Francisco Etxeberria, an anthropologist and forensic expert who has helped with exhumations since 2000 and now advises the government on issues of historical memory. The 2007 law created a subsidy system that transferred responsibility for finding facilities to private associations.
The UN report criticized this «privatization» of exhumation efforts. Now, the new bill wants government agencies at all levels to help find and open mass graves. There will also be an official register of victims that will gather information that is now scattered. The bill also provides for the creation of a database where laboratories can upload genetic profiles of localized remains to match the DNA of relatives. In 2020, El Pais reported that the government of Pedro Sánchez was working on drafting a new law on historical memory that would include a DNA database and an official list of victims of the civil war. [10] In 2008, the Association for the Restoration of Historical Memory launched a systematic search for mass graves of people executed under the Franco regime, an initiative supported by the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero since the victory of the Spanish Socialist Workers` Party in the 2004 elections. The Law on Historical Memory (Ley de Memoria Histórica) was adopted in 2007[80] to enforce the official recognition of crimes committed against civilians during the Franco regime and to organize the search for mass graves under state supervision. In Spain, in the summer of 2004, a commission to restore the dignity of the victims of the Franco regime and to honour their memory (comisión para reparar la dignidad y restituir la memoria de las víctimas del franquismo) was approved, headed by the then Vice-President, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega.
[78] Because of his repressive policy on regional languages, Franco`s memory is still particularly angry in Catalonia and the Basque Country. [Citation needed] The Basque provinces and Catalonia were among the regions that put up the strongest resistance to Franco during the civil war and during his regime. To understand the newly introduced and revised legal system, it is necessary to understand the historical context of the Spanish Civil War, which lasted from 1936 to 1939.