The Amnesty Act in the Spanish Transition: Freedom Fight, Oblivion and Unspoken Impunity
The Amnesty Act in the Spanish Transition: Freedom Fight, Oblivion and Unspoken Impunity

Summary/Abstract: In the following pages I focused on the significances and meanings constructed around the legal concept of political amnesty, comparing them with the content and effects of the 1977Amnesty Act, adopted during the Spanish Transition by an agreement between the government and the political parties opposing the Francoist dictatorship. First, I showed how the dominant social significance of political amnesty has varied, reflecting on the consequences of the manner in which this has taken place with regard to memory and remembrance of the past for the Spanish transitional case. Secondly, I developed the three main elements that characterised the Amnesty Law and the relationship between what was made public in the mass media and the content of the law, namely the struggle for freedom of the prisoners of dictatorship, the oblivion and impunity for the repressive apparatus. Finally, I analysed the relationship between what was hidden and what was made public with respect to the hegemonic interpretative discourses in the context articulated between the past, the power relations and the mass media.

• Details
• Contents