RIGHTS-SPAIN: Opposition to Take Law on Aliens to Constitutional Court

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Mar 19 2001 (IPS) - One of Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar’s former cabinet ministers and the leader of Spain’s chief opposition force criticised Monday the law on aliens that went into effect this year as unconstitutional.

Manuel Pimentel, who served as labour minister in Aznar’s first centre-right government (1996-2000), said the debate on the law promoted by members of the governing Popular Party (PP) “has without a doubt fomented racism.”

In addition, the law has “unconstitutional aspects,” added Pimentel, who had refused an offer to sit on Aznar’s current cabinet.

Meanwhile, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the secretary-general of the main opposition force, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), announced Monday that his party would file a suit with the constitutional court against several articles of the law on aliens.

The law violates basic rights enshrined in the constitution, said Rodríguez Zapatero at the end of a meeting of the PSOE Federal Executive Committee in Merida, 300 kms from Madrid.

The government continues to insist that it will not accept any modification of the law, against which thousands of immigrants protested in Madrid Sunday.

A group of Colombian intellectuals, including Nobel Literature laureate Gabriel García Márquez, painter and sculptor Fernando Botero and writers Alvaro Mutis, Fernando Vallejo, Willian Ospina, Darío Jaramillo and Héctor Abad sent a letter to Aznar demanding that the law on aliens be amended.

“With the dignity that we learned from Spain, we will not return there as long as we are subjected to the humiliation of having to present authorisation to be able to visit what we have never considered foreign,” wrote the Colombian luminaries.

“Hispanic Americans cannot be treated by Spain like just any other foreigners. There are arms and brains here that you need,” they added.

“The wheel of wealth of nations is like the wheel of fortune. It is not a good idea to slam the door shut in the face of poor relations in times of opulence,” they warned. “Perhaps one day we will also have to open our doors to the sons and daughters of Spain, as has so often occurred in the past.”

There are two central questions over which the opposition and human rights groups are at a stand-off with the government: recognition of the citizen rights of immigrants, and the regularisation of the status of those immigrants who are already in Spain, and who lack residency and work permits.

According to estimates by consular authorities, there are between 100,000 to 200,000 undocumented immigrants in Spain who, lacking an entry visa and residency permit, are unable to obtain authorisation to work.

The Catholic Church, ombudsman Enrique Múgica, Spain’s two biggest central trade unions and dozens of human rights groups are demanding that the government grant residency permits to immigrants who are already living in Spain, instead of deporting them.

But the Aznar administration is reluctant to do so, and argues that the position taken by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the Church hinders the government’s immigration policy and foments the illegal trafficking of persons.

The government issued a communique stating that while the aid to immigrants provided by NGOs and the Church was “well- intentioned,” it could provide “the mafias involved in the trafficking of persons with new arguments for attracting possible candidates for trafficking and exploitation.”

Rodríguez Zapatero admitted that the claim before the Constitutional Court could drag on for years, as has occurred in other cases. However, he argued that it was important for the court to pronounce itself on the law.

He added that the case would not keep his party from negotiating with the government in search of concrete solutions that would keep undocumented immigrants from being deported and would permit them to earn residency and work permits.