The Supreme Court has confirmed the conviction of disobedience imposed on the former deputy and former councilor of the CUP in Lleida Pau Juvillà for not removing the yellow ribbons from a window of the town hall during the legislative period of the April 2019 general elections, although the electoral board was asked to do so several times. The Criminal Chamber has rejected Juvillà's appeal against the ruling of the Supreme Court of Catalonia (TSJC), which sentenced him in December 2021 to a six-month special ban from holding elective public positions and a fine of 1,080 euros.
Juvillà was a member of parliament when the TSJC convicted him, leading to a row in the Catalan chamber because pro-independence groups refused to remove his seat. The then President of Parliament, Laura Borràs, urged not to comply with the ruling until it was final, but Parliament ultimately announced the MP's resignation in February 2022.
The TSJC ruling considered it proven that since 2017, Juvillà had had a stele and some yellow ribbons in his office in the town hall on the top floor to protest against the preventive detention of Oriol Junqueras and eight other leaders of the trial. In 2019, Ciudadanos councilor Elisa Ribes denounced him for considering these symbols “biased.” The mayor at the time ignored a Lleida judge's request to remove them until they were confiscated by police. The public prosecutor then filed a complaint against Juvillà.
In its ruling, in which Judge Juan Ramón Berdugo acted as speaker, the Supreme Court emphasizes that “the appellant took advantage of his status, first as a councilor and later as chairman of the community group, to place such symbols in these town hall offices,” his office in the supreme floor, officially assigned, which constitutes a violation of the obligation of political neutrality enshrined in Article 50 of the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime for electoral periods.
Regarding Juvillà's accusation of violating his ideological freedom, the Supreme Court points out that “the purpose of the proceedings is not to analyze the applicant's conviction from the point of view of ideological freedom and expression, since as a citizen he is free to carry out demonstrations or .” Actions that reflect their political identity. The aim is disobedience to the repeated orders of a constitutional body whose task is to ensure the transparency and cleanliness in the electoral processes, which requires the neutrality of the authorities and public administrations.
“The lawful exercise of a right,” the judgment adds, “does not constitute a patent, so that under its protection all actions carried out under the conditions of the commandment can be justified, but they must be within the framework of the law.” of their proper expression, use and scope, otherwise they constitute an abuse capable and sufficient to devalue the apology and arrive at a definition of responsibility.
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The Supreme Court insists that the question raised in the appeal is whether the applicant, as a councilor of the City Council and a member of a municipal group, could be required by the Zonal Electoral Board to comply with the agreement that ordered the removal of the Estelada and the yellow Ribbons attached to the main facade from the window corresponding to the office of the said community group and visible from the outside. “And the answer must be affirmative,” the court concluded.
Thus, the Supreme Court emphasizes that “the appellant omits that the display of these symbols – Estelada and yellow ribbons, whose political and ideological significance cannot be questioned – did not take place in the context of a party-political campaign during the election campaign, that is to say during elections which the political formation plays a role.” to which the defendant belongs, but permanently in a public office on the city council.”
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