Democratic Memory Law

Democratic Memory Law. Cartoon of 22/10/2022 in CTXT

After being validated in the Senate, the Law on Democratic Memory has been published in the Official State Gazette (BOE). This new text replaces Law 52/2007, of 26 December, popularly known as the Law of Historical Memory.

Declaration of the illegality of the Franco regime

In its article V, "Declaration of illegality and illegitimacy of bodies and nullity of their resolutions
", the law declares the Franco regime and the Francoist courts illegal, annulling all their convictions
.

The term victim is redefined

"For the purposes of this law, a victim is considered to be any person, regardless of
their nationality, who has suffered, individually or collectively, physical, moral
or psychological
harm
, property damage, or substantial impairment of their fundamental rights, as a result of actions or omissions that constitute violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law during the period covering the coup d'état of 18 July 1936, the subsequent war and the dictatorship, including the period until the entry into force of the Spanish Constitution of 1978.

31 October is declared a day of remembrance and homage to all the victims of the military coup, the War and the Dictatorship, and 8 May as a Day of Homage to the victims of exile.

Creation of the State DNA Bank of Victims of the War and Dictatorship

The State DNA Bank of Victims of War and Dictatorship is created as a
state DNA database, attached to the Ministry of Justice, which will have the function of receiving and storing the DNA profiles of victims of the War and Dictatorship and their relatives, as well as of persons affected by the abduction of newborns, in order to be able to compare these DNA profiles with a view to the genetic identification of the victims
.

Declaration of Acknowledgement and Personal Reparation

The right to obtain a Declaration of personal recognition and reparation is recognised
for those who, during the war and the dictatorship, suffered the circumstances referred to in Article 3.1 and the effects of the convictions and sanctions referred to in Articles
4 and 5. This right is fully compatible with the other rights and reparation measures recognised in the rest of the rules of the legal system, as well as with the exercise of the actions that may be brought before the courts of justice, without being able to produce effects for the recognition of the patrimonial responsibility of the State, of any public administration or of private individuals, nor give rise to any effect, reparation or compensation of an economic or professional nature.

The Valley of the Fallen is renamed the Valley of Cuelgamuros

The law includes the intention to create a state inventory of places of democratic memory, including the Valley of the Fallen (Madrid), which will be renamed the Valley of Cuelgamuros.

The place will be treated as a space "of democratic memory, whose resignification will be aimed at making known, through plans and mechanisms for research and dissemination, the circumstances of its construction, the historical period in which it was built and its significance, with the aim of strengthening constitutional and democratic values".

Among other things,"no acts of a political nature or exaltation of the War, its protagonists or the Dictatorship may be carried out in any part of the enclosure".

Abolition of titles of nobility

The following titles of nobility and grandees of Spain granted between 1948 and 1978 are hereby abolished:

1. Duke of Primo de Rivera, with Greatness of Spain.
2. Duke of Calvo Sotelo, with Greatness of Spain.
3. Duke of Mola, with Greatness of Spain.
4. Count of the Alcázar of Toledo, with the title of Grandee of Spain.
5. Count of Labajos.
6. Marquis of Dávila, and the attached Grandee of Spain.
7. Marquis of Saliquet.
8. Marquis of Queipo de Llano.
9. Marquis of Alborán.
10. Count of Jarama.
11. Marquis of Varela de San Fernando.
12. Count of Benjumea.
13. Marquis of Somosierra.
14. Grandee of Spain granted to the Count of Rodezno.
15. Marquis of San Leonardo de Yagüe.
16. Count of La Cierva.
17. Marquis of Vigón.
18. Count of Fenosa.
19. Count of Castillo de la Mota.
20. Marquis of Suanzes.
21. Marquis of Kindelán.
22. Count of Pallasar.
23. Marquis of Casa Cervera.

Although it is a law that will have no impact on possible reparations and a fair solution to theft and plunder, as the Asociación Recuperación Memoria Histórica (Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory) points out, it is welcome. One more step will always be something more than the usual and continuous backward steps of the neo-Francoist carcunda of those who are called "nostalgics".