The Catalan independence movement consolidated part of its history during processes denouncing the “repression” by the Spanish judicial system and predicting that European courts would correct, sooner rather than later, the judicial failures of the National Court or the Supreme Court. This argument has weakened after the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), according to which Spain did not violate the political rights of pro-independence politicians by adopting preventive detention after the events that occurred in 2017. The ruling made public on Thursday rejects the arguments of Oriol Junqueras, Jordi Turull and Jordi Sánchez, who sued the Spanish state before the Court of Strasbourg for violating their political rights and freedom of expression by maintaining them. in preventive detention, which prevented them from participating in political trials in Catalonia after the 1-0 independence referendum, despite having been elected to institutional positions.
The ECtHR’s ruling comes a week before the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union is due to make public his first conclusions on 13 November on Spanish courts’ doubts about the application of the amnesty law and its compatibility with EU law.
Junts general secretary Jordi Turull expressed his respect for the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) which supports the Supreme Court, but admits that he does not agree with it, as he continues to maintain that his political rights were violated and that his incarceration was a political decision. In statements released by Parliament, Turull wanted to underline this Thursday that the sentence does not change his perception of the events that triggered his attempt to be run over. president of the Generalitat in the vortex of the separatist challenge: “We believe that my incarceration, in the midst of the debate on the investitures, responded to political criteria to decapitate, as someone has already said, the independence movement. We will resist until we see our rights won”, he underlines.
Turull is convinced that if he had not opted for the debate on the investiture as president of the Generalitat in the context of the time, “things would certainly have gone differently”.
“At the time the government had already said that none of the leaders of processes “The independence movement should be allowed to continue in politics,” he said. In his opinion, the ECtHR ruling responds to the work of the State Prosecutor’s Office after having “decorated and legally perfected what was a political decision”. After hoping that this wouldn’t happen to anyone, beyond political colors, he made it clear that he would do it again: “Obviously,” he added.
For its part, Esquerra Republicana maintains that “the judicial process at an international level in defense of the political rights of independence activists remains open and maintains its anti-repressive struggle on all fronts”. The party reacted to the European Court of Human Rights ruling with a note insisting that the preventive detention suffered by pro-independence leaders aims to limit their political rights. The ERC recalled that this same argument has been validated in other cases by the UN Human Rights Committee and the Panel on Arbitrary Detention.
For the party led by Junqueras “the judicial discussion remains awaiting resolution” and will therefore await the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union. reports Camilo S. Baquero.
The thesis of the Catalan independence movement already suffered another blow last June, when it emerged that the European Commission had sent a report critical of the amnesty law to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Despite not seeing that this rule affects European funds, the report – relating to the preliminary question raised by the Court of Auditors – specifies that “it does not appear that the amnesty law actually responds to an objective of general interest recognized by the Union”, which contradicts the content of the draft sentence that the Constitutional Court has prepared for deliberation.
