Transitional justice and impunity for fascism in southern Europe: The case of Spain in a comparative perspective

This article addresses four cases of transitional justice practised in southern Europe from 1945 to the present day: France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, to which special attention is paid. Representatives of what are considered the first and second wave of transitional justice, they have in common the fascist experience but the ways of facing the violent past are dissimilar due to its different national and international contexts. In France and Italy, the criminal justice, administrative purges, and economic sanctions that were applied were preceded by extra-legal repression exercised during the final phase of the war, the liberation, and the immediate postwar period in what was known as an épuration and in which the Resistance played a leading role. On the contrary, in the transitions of the late 1970s, criminal justice was applied minimally in Portugal, where administrative purges prevailed, and was non-existent in Spain, because of the Amnesty Law of 1977. Although impunity accompanied all the processes studied, the comparison reveals the singularity of the Spanish case, with a greater degree of consequence of a transition to a non-disruptive democracy with the Franco dictatorship. In the same way, in all cases, reconciliation with the past has extended into the 21st century and it has also been in Spain where it has presented the greatest difficulties.