Once again a very relevant court decision comes at a crucial moment in a negotiation between the government and the independents. If on November 7th it was the judge of the National Court Manuel García-Castellón who wrote an order implicating Carles Puigdemont in the tsunami case for alleged terrorist crimes, it was precisely the day on which the investiture pact between the PSOE and the Junts was signed, this time The Supreme Court decided on Thursday to charge the Junts boss, who is certified as an MEP, with the same crime. This happened just as plans to close the amnesty law, whose deadline is the 7th of next week, were approaching.
In November, this order from García-Castellón greatly complicated the negotiations, which were finally concluded four days later amid great tension, and other movements of this judge caused great nervousness and changes of position among Junts, which required further changes. However, various sources from both sectors now agree that the government and the independents, not just the Junts but also the ERC – which is waiting for an agreed reform – are determined to protect the negotiations from judicial pressure.
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It does not look as if the new decision of the Supreme Court, which was openly criticized by independence supporters while the PSOE remained silent as usual and expressed its respect for every court decision, will this time change a very important trial progressive. All sources consulted agree that an early agreement is very likely, although given history no one can take this for granted. However, some of these sources point out that the Supreme Court's decision forces negotiators even more to reach an agreement, as there is evidence that a part of the judiciary wants to prevent the amnesty from having any real impact at all costs.
President Pedro Sánchez has not commented on this this time, but his position was already very clear in a press conference in Brussels a month ago, when he said that “all independents will be pardoned because they are not terrorists.” The government insists that that it was not terrorism, and in private some of its members joke about the “coincidence” that the decision came at the very moment when the negotiation of the law was just being completed, but in public the message remains more absolute Respect for justice. The executive branch is closer to the position of the prosecutor, who insists that there was no terrorism in the demonstrations at Barcelona airport in 2019, but only aggravated public unrest.
The Catalan independence parties were united in their criticism of the background to the court decision and the Supreme Court's accusation of disregarding the separation of powers. From the ranks of the Junts, their spokesman Josep Rius accused the judges of wanting to “interfere in the will of the legislature” with the terrorism accusation, indirectly referring to the parliamentary negotiations to pass the amnesty law. For her part, Republican Marta Vilaret criticized the Supreme Court for wanting to become a “political actor.”
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Rius did not specifically address the impact that Puigdemont's accusation has on the negotiations between Junts and the PSOE, but made it clear in his speech that he sees a willingness on the part of the judiciary to “enter the political arena” and emphasized discretion fled, which shaped the negotiations with the socialists, in order not to deal with the idea. However, party sources insisted that the Supreme Court's argument was so “outrageous” that it had no bearing on negotiations on the second attempt to approve the amnesty.
“Everyone knows that there was no terrorism during the trial in Catalonia, that Tsunami Democràtic proposed non-violent protests and that the evidence of the defendants' responsibility is very weak,” added Vilaret, deputy secretary of the ERC. “The free exercise of the right to demonstrate cannot be described as terrorism,” said Rius.
It was said in the Republican ranks that if Junts had not voted against the procedure in Congress, further turbulence in the negotiations could now be avoided. However, ERC and Junts put aside their differences and their daily exchange of accusations for a day to send messages of mutual support and place an accusatory finger on the judiciary, which they say is left to the agenda of “the right and the far right”. becomes. “, as President Pere Aragonès said in a message on
For now, Junts reaffirms the idea that it is better to hunker down in order to guarantee, as in other key moments of the legislative period, that everything ends well. Puigdemont again resorted to his messages in X to establish a position. There he made fun of the accusation and also used the opportunity to deny information from El Confidencial about the alleged donation of a 7,000 euro watch by a company that organized several events for independents. “I think I just need a secret account in Panama. “Spanish justice has adopted the maxim of bad journalism: don’t let reality ruin a good accusation,” the former Catalan president said.
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