The Criminal Chamber of the Spanish Supreme Court sentenced leading figures of the Catalan sovereignty movement to long prison sentences in its judgment No. 459/2019 of 14 October 2019:
Dr Oriol Junqueras, elected Member of the European Parliament: 13 years imprisonment and the same ban on public office.
Dolors Bassa, Raül Romeva and Jordi Turull: 12 years imprisonment each and the same ban on dressing for public office.
Carme Forcadell: 11 years and 6 months imprisonment as well as the same ban on the dressing of public offices.
Joaquim Forn and Josep Rull: 10 years and 6 months imprisonment each and the same ban on the dressing of public officials.
Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez: 9 years imprisonment each and the same ban on dressing for public offices.
Carles Mundó, Meritxell Borràs and Santi Vila: fine of 60,000 euros each and ban on holding public office for one year and eight months.
In addition, the sentenced persons were ordered to pay the — very high — costs of the trial on a pro rata basis.
In October 2017, for the first time since the end of the Second World War, the Kingdom of Spain declared in Western Europe that a democratically elected parliament had been dismissed and dissolved. On 14 October 2019, the judiciary of the Kingdom of Spain sentenced the deposed members of the Government and the President of Parliament, as well as two leading members of Catalan civil society, to long prison terms for their peaceful and legal political activities. The trial and the judgment are contrary to Spanish law, to Spanish law and to mandatory international law to which Spain has submitted through international treaties and its Constitution. In particular, they violate the Human Rights of those now sentenced. The judges try to refute this fact on pages 60-63 and 63-80 of their judgment, but misjudge the mandatory nature of Human Rights and the Human Rights Pacts of the United Nations ratified by Spain.
There were not the two instances provided for by Spanish law and mandatory international law in this procedure. The first instance provided for by Spanish law — the jurisdiction in Barcelona — has been omitted. The trial took place at first and only instance in Madrid. The sentenced persons will not be granted a second instance. The seven judges are trying to give this procedure an appearance of legality (pp. 80-100 of the judgment); in countries with a functioning constitutional state, however, such a procedure would not be possible.
The defendants were not allowed to defend themselves in Catalan, their mother tongue, although they would have been entitled to do so. To this end, the judgment states, inter alia, that this would have precluded the plan to conduct the trial in a fully public manner — all trial days were recorded and broadcast on television — and that the judges would then have had to wear headphones (pp. 68-80 of the judgment).
Even with the serious accusation that several judges of the Supreme Court were biased and therefore to be excluded from the trial against the accused, the seven judges argue in detail and certify themselves and their colleagues to be completely impartial (pp. 100-130 of the judgment). The corresponding statements in the judgment seem strange in places. Nemo iudex in propria re ...
Nor did the circumstances in which the defendants and their lawyers had to prepare for the trial meet the standards of a modern constitutional state and, as is well known, violate elementary principles of Spanish law as well as of international law. The seven judges also take a position on this and argue that this is not the case from their point of view (pp. 130-133 of the judgment).
The seven judges of the first and only instance then reject a number of accusations that essential rights of the accused and their defenders have been violated or curtailed (pp. 133-198 of the judgment). These are serious allegations made by the accused and their defenders, and there is no second instance that could review and, if necessary, correct the first instance decision. Judges who can judge in the first and only instance and can impose long prison sentences seem to feel like gods: omnipotent, omniscient and infallible.
The seven judges also deal in detail with the Human Right of peoples to self-determination and try to portray it as if the Catalan people could not claim it for themselves (pp. 198-223 of the judgment). On the other hand, the opinion of an international panel of experts is different.
The seven judges further argue that the abolition of the punishability of referendums in Spain in 2005 cannot be invoked in favour of the defendants (pp. 223-234 of the judgment). They also state why, in their opinion, the defendants could not assert a right to civil disobedience (pp. 234-242 of the judgment).
The judges certify themselves at first and only instance that they have not infringed any fundamental rights of the accused in the trial (right to freedom of expression, right to peaceful assembly, right to freedom of thought and conscience, right to political representation, right to freedom of association) (p. 242-253 of the judgment).
The trial was not conducted fairly, according to international observers and Human Rights organizations. The rights of defence were arbitrarily curtailed by the presiding judge, Manuel Marchena. (Manuel Marchena is regarded in Spain as a judge very close to the anti-Catalonian Partido Popular).
Contrary to the public opinion of leading Spanish politicians, the seven judges, like the Higher Regional Court of Schleswig-Holstein (2018), were compelled by the facts to establish that there was no violence within the meaning of Spanish law which would have constituted a rebellion (Article 472 of the Spanish Penal Code). However, they nevertheless consider that there is an element of riot (Article 544 of the Spanish Penal Code).
Article 544 of the Spanish Penal Code reads as follows:
«Son reos de sedición los que, sin estar comprendidos en el delito de rebelión, se alcen pública y tumultuariamente para impedir, por la fuerza o fuera de las vías legales, la aplicación de las Leyes o a cualquier autoridad, corporación oficial o funcionario público, el legítimo ejercicio de sus funciones o el cumplimiento de sus acuerdos, o de las resoluciones administrativas o judiciales.»
«Those accused of riot are those who, without being involved in the crime of rebellion, rise publicly and tumultuously to impede, by force or otherwise, the application of the law or of any authority, public body or official, the lawful exercise of their functions or the execution of their agreements or administrative or judicial decisions, the application of which is subject to the force of law or any other form of recourse.»
While prestigious Spanish Ordinaries of Criminal and Constitutional Law have publicly stated that the accused could not be accused of ‘rebellion’ or ‘riot’ because they had not at any time committed such offences, the seven judges argue under their new law interpretation that the sum of the accused's actions nevertheless falls within this category (pp. 275-285 of the judgment).
Some of the defendants were also accused of abusing public funds, even though at no point in the trial could it be proved that the referendum of 1 October 2017 had been financed from public funds, and even though the Spanish government had long since closely controlled the Catalan government's financial resources and was well aware of the use of each individual euro. But here the judges resorted to the trick of considering democratically legitimate expenses such as inviting international observers to Catalonia or placing advertisements in daily newspapers as an abuse of public funds, because the referendum of 1 October 2017 had been declared illegal by the Spanish Constitutional Court after it was held. At least, in the opinion of the seven judges, 250,000 euros had been spent (p. 287 of the judgment). The fact that in many, if not all, cases the allegedly embezzled funds were not paid at all and that at most pro forma invoices were found which were never paid does not bother the seven judges in their unfathomable wisdom. After all, it could have happened that bills had been paid ... (pp. 285-292 of the judgment).
«Disobedience» is a criminal offence in the Spanish Penal Code (Articles 410-412), which may seem unusual in this form. This offence appears to have been explicitly conceived in order to suppress the Catalan people more effectively. The seven judges also accuse some of the defendants of this crime (pp. 292-294 of the judgment). In fact, more than two million Catalan citizens could be accused of this 'criminal offence' if it did not conflict in essential respects with higher Human Rights. If, however, one proceeds strictly according to the Spanish penal code, one will come to the conclusion that the offences of rebellion and riot, as they are defined there, were in no case realized by the accused, but the Spanish offense of 'disobedience' was. Incidentally, the Spanish Constitutional Court, which is known to be biased and, in particular, closely linked to the Partido Popular, and which now has also legislative and executive powers, contrary to the principle of the separation of powers, prohibited at the beginning of October 2019 the Catalan Parliament, under threat of punishment, from debating or deciding on the Human Right of the peoples to self-determination or the independence of Catalonia as a political objective, or from reprimanding the Spanish King, defining this as a criminal offence of disobedience. In which other country of the European Union does a constitutional court distribute such parliamentary muzzles?
The seven judges see the facts of the «sedición» (riot) as having been realized in the first and only instance by the following defendants: Dr. Oriol Junqueras, Raül Romeva, Carme Forcadell, Jordi Turull, Josep Rull, Dolors Bassa, Joaquim Forn, Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez. In this context, ‘riot’ is understood to mean that even conduct which carries with it the risk that a situation may arise which falls within the scope of this criminal offence must be regarded as a criminal offence of 'riot' (p. 297 of the judgment). After introductory remarks, which represent a fundamentally new doctrine of the interpretation of this crime, as it should not have been foreseeable in this form for the defendants in 2017, the seven judges carry out what they accuse each of the nine defendants accused of riot (pp. 297-399). As a German, one cannot help but remember the rulings of the People's Court (‘Volksgerichtshof’) when reading these points!
The seven judges accuse the defendants Oriol Junqueras, Raül Romeva, Jordi Turull and Dolors Bassa of misuse of public funds, without the reasoning they have established being able to convince (pp. 399-472 of the judgment). Here, too, a critical reader of the judgment will not be able to resist the impression that this is a political trial in which the sentencing of the accused to long prison sentences was already decided before the trial began and in which it was only a matter of playing a comedy to the public in order to present the sentence as allegedly lawful.
Although the allegation of ‘disobedience’, made by Santiago Vila, Meritxell Borràs and Carles Mundó (pp. 472-476 of the judgment), is true after the reform of Spanish criminal law a few years ago, the extent to which this offence, and in particular its interpretation, is contrary to higher-ranking international law (ius cogens) should be examined.
The fixing of costs in the first and only instance, which imposes all the costs of this trial on the convicted persons, should lead to considerable sums to be paid by the convicted persons, given the great effort involved (pp. 485-488 of the judgment). In recent years, several Catalan politicians, such as the former president of the Catalan government, Artur Mas, have been financially ruined by court decisions. This procedure has a system in Spain and should lead to prominent supporters of Catalan state sovereignty being financially punished and, if possible, muzzled.
Already days before the official delivery of the 493-page verdict, its essential contents were punctured to representatives of the press and the public prosecutor's office. This also violated the rights of the accused.
The judgment and its justification represent an incredible distortion of the facts and of Spanish law, which would be impossible in a functioning constitutional state. It is true that the seven judges acquitted all the defendants of the accusation of rebellion and the formation of a criminal organisation against them and, furthermore, acquitted the defendants Joaquim Forn, Josep Rull, Santiago Vila, Meritxell Borràs and Carles Mundó of the accusation of misuse of public funds against them. But the justification for the convictions in Spain is a new interpretation of penal law that violates fundamental rights and Human Rights. Anyone who reads this extensive judgment carefully will be able to see the legal dislocations and abstruse thought figures that can blame the accused for the criminal acts of rioting and misuse of public funds despite the lack of evidence. Suddenly, fundamental rights and human rights are not only not guaranteed in Spain, but their exercise is threatened with long prison sentences!
It is to be hoped that one day the seven Spanish judges, whose verdict violated Spanish and international law, will themselves have to stand trial in the dock of an international court for this trial and verdict: They are Manuel Marchena Gómez (presiding judge), Andrés Martínez Arrieta, Juan Ramón Berdugo Gómez de la Torre, Luciano Varela Castro, Antonio del Moral García, Andrés Palomo del Arco and Ana María Ferrer García.
The conflict in Catalonia will no longer be resolved through dialogue, but only through confrontation. Although the Catalans want to proceed exclusively peacefully, Spain is relying on violence and oppression and will not shy away from dismissing the current Catalan Government and the current President of the Catalan Parliament and from prosecuting them legally if it suits them. If Spain pulls the plug and there are deaths among the Catalans, the non-violence of the Catalans will come to an end at some point. Then Europe in Spain could experience a civil war of unprecedented proportions. This is precisely what the United Nations wants the peoples' Human Right to self-determination, which is just as much due to the Catalan people as it is to the Kurdish people or the Germans who claimed it on the occasion of their reunification, to prevent!
A state which dissolves a democratically elected parliament and prosecutes the elected politicians under flimsy pretexts is not a democracy!
A state which sentences politicians who are recognisably not guilty of the crimes they have been accused of to prison for many years is not a constitutional state! It is an injustice state which must put up with comparison with Francoism and National Socialism.
A state which violates Human Rights, the principles of democracy and the rule of law on such a massive scale as Spain must no longer remain a voting member of the European Union!
A State which tries with all its might to oppress a people living in it and treats them like a colony loses the right to rule over them and to subject them to its jurisdiction!
A State which behaves as Spain has done in recent years is inevitably doomed to destruction and will disintegrate.
And if Europe continues to watch and even supports Spain in oppressing the Catalan people, the European Union will lose its moral basis and its raison d'être. Then it would be best to dissolve it or withdraw from it, as Britain is doing right now.
https://www.miragenews.com/catalonia-convictions-and-long-shadow-of-franco/