Congress is studying how to extend the expulsion of José María Sánchez, Vox deputy, even for several months, after he confronted the Presidency of the Parliament during Tuesday’s plenary session. The far-right parliamentarian climbed onto the Chamber’s podium, where the members of the Board, the control body of the Cortes, are located, where he confronted a legal advisor and then faced the first vice president, the socialist Alfonso Rodríguez Gómez de Celis, who at that moment was presiding over Congress instead of Francina Armengol and acted as the third authority of the State. The Board will decide at a future meeting how to act against deputy Sánchez and is considering different options and similar precedents. Ten parties represented in Congress, all except PP, Vox, and UPN, have signed a condemnation declaration that was not read in the plenary due to opposition from those right-wing groups.
The socialist parliamentary group is also pressing on the matter and is considering presenting the expulsion proposal, supported by various articles of the Congress regulations, at next week’s Board meeting after studying the complexity of the issue and precedents in various parliaments, several top sources told EL PAÍS. “What happened is very serious. It has only happened twice in recent history: with Tejero and now with a Vox deputy,” was the blunt statement from Patxi López, the socialist spokesperson. “It cannot be tolerated; the escalation of insults cannot turn into violence. The Congress Board must act and set limits. Democracy is also defended inside Parliament,” López concludes.
At first, the possibility of applying article 106 was considered, which states that “any person who in the parliamentary precinct, in session or outside it, whether or not a member of the Chamber, promotes serious disorder by their conduct, action, or words, shall be immediately expelled.” It adds: “If it concerns a member of the Chamber, the Presidency shall also suspend them immediately in their capacity for up to one month, without prejudice to the Chamber, at the proposal of the Board and in accordance with article 101, being able to extend or aggravate the sanction.” That article should have been applied “on the spot,” that is, at the moment of the confrontation, but now it is being considered to apply even more severe sanctions starting from article 99, where suspension could last up to six months.
The unprecedented event of a deputy reprimanding the third authority of the State, who was exercising the Presidency of the Cortes at that moment, just centimeters away in his own seat, has triggered a wave of denunciations from ministers and spokespersons of various parties, practically all except PP, UPN, and Vox. Within the PP, voices have privately questioned this unusual behavior, but none have spoken publicly. Vox has given lukewarm support to its parliamentarian, and the group spokesperson, Pepa Millán, blamed everything on the Presidency. The deputy did not attend Wednesday’s plenary because he was under the expulsion from the previous day for the entire session, but he neither retracted nor apologized, not even in the private conversation he had with Armengol. Sánchez maintains that he chose to access the Presidency’s podium without permission to denounce that during the intervention at the lectern of another Vox deputy, an ERC parliamentarian, Jordi Salvador, had called him “criminal and murderer.” That ERC deputy does not deny having held an inappropriate cross conversation with the far-right parliamentarian.
The PSOE does not want this incident to be forgotten as just another episode of bad manners and brawling, which have been recurrent lately in the Chamber. Within the socialist group, there is a proliferation of leaders in favor of applying an exemplary sanction to the far-right deputy, who has already been involved in several other incidents in Congress. In 2021, he called socialist deputy Laura Berja a “witch.” Even then, José María Sánchez refused for more than 10 minutes to comply with the order to leave the plenary. This Tuesday, the parliamentarian maintained a provocative attitude in the morning at the Justice commission, according to sources present, and kept it in the plenary until his expulsion, even against the legal advisor supervising the session.
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“He was warned; this deputy was expelled from the chamber after three prior warnings,” explains Rodríguez Gómez de Celis, who applied article 104 of the regulations. The first vice president details that there was a first warning given with President Armengol on the podium, in which the Vox deputy “tried to interrupt the debate by shouting, and the president did not give him the floor and called him to order for the first time.” On the second occasion Sánchez was called to order, the socialist Rodríguez Gómez de Celis was already occupying Armengol’s position. “While he was speaking, a spokesperson from his own group began shouting from his seat. At that moment, he came towards the podium and harassed the legal advisor who was accompanying the Board somewhat violently. I told him to leave the legal advisor alone, who had nothing to do with this. And I called him to order for the second time, warning him that if there was a third, he would have to be expelled from the chamber,” recounts the first vice president.
The third and final call to order came while PP deputy Manuel Cobo was speaking. “He got down from his seat, and I thought he was going towards the exit, but no, what he did was climb onto the podium, and I found him shouting behind me,” Rodríguez de Celis continues in conversation with this newspaper. “I couldn’t understand very well what he was saying; my concern was the possibility of physical aggression. I was attentive the whole time to the possibility of that happening, to see from where the slap could come, from where he could attack me, and what to do about it. If that happened, my determination was never to respond,” recalls the PSOE leader. “I didn’t want those images to happen. My determination was for him to leave and to expel him from the chamber. For over a minute, I said: ‘Please, leave the Chamber, leave the chamber.’ I was focused on achieving that as soon as possible. The reason is that the session could not be interrupted. That the plenary cannot continue… For me, it is something sacred,” he observes.
Several ministers have regretted that the PP has not denounced the attitude of the Vox deputy, a party with which the Populars still have not closed government agreements in Aragón, Extremadura ―the deadline ends on May 3 and 4 respectively― and Castilla y León. The first vice president of Congress values “the position taken by the two PP Board colleagues,” who were on the podium at that moment, referring to Marta González, fourth vice president, and Carmen Navarro, fourth secretary. “That leads me to reflect, and I believe that all democrats, including the Popular Party, which I understand, consider, and include within the democratic bloc, must reflect on the opening of doors in institutions to these ideological, verbal, and almost physical violent attitudes of the far right,” Rodríguez Gómez de Celis concludes.
All parties in the Chamber, except PP, Vox, and UPN, that is, a total of 10 parties, have promoted an institutional declaration condemning deputy Sánchez’s action without chances of success for it to be read on the same day, as it would require the unanimity of all parliamentary groups. “What happened is not an anecdote. It is a way of doing politics based on noise, intimidation, and contempt for the basic rules of democratic coexistence,” the text states. “Congress is not a show; it is not a television set nor a ring. It is the seat of popular sovereignty and deserves respect,” the proposed declaration continues, whose signatories “firmly reject what happened” and demand “that it never happens again.” It concludes: “Democracy is not about shouting more. It is about respecting more. Against those who try to degrade this institution, the Chamber reaffirms its commitment to respect, coexistence, and the exemplary behavior that citizens deserve. Physically confronting the Chamber’s legal services and repeatedly ignoring the Presidency violates the Regulations. But doing so from the presidential podium itself, just centimeters from the president, also attacks the dignity of this institution.”
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