Spain's efforts to criminalise political dissidents from Catalonia and to prosecute them with the means of a judiciary that is obviously biased and not based on the rule of law, and with the participation of a «constitutional court» that does not deserve this name and is not subject to the separation of powers, are failing time and again.
The majority of the twelve judges of the Spanish Constitutional Court are appointed by politicians, which is why it is not considered independent. The Congress of Deputies appoints four judges, the Senate four more judges, the government two judges. Only two of the twelve judges are appointed by the «Consejo General del Poder Judicial». The Constitutional Court decides for itself which proceedings it has jurisdiction over. Once it has granted itself jurisdiction, this is withdrawn from the other Spanish courts (Ley Orgánica 6/2007). It has not only judicial, but also legislative power and in certain cases even executive power. Its decisions are published directly in the Spanish Official Gazette (Boletín Oficial) and cannot be revoked by any other Spanish court.
The Belgian judiciary has finally decided not to extradite a Catalan-speaking rapper from Mallorca to Spain. What Spain, which wanted him extradited on a European Arrest Warrant, accuses him of is not considered a criminal offence in Belgium (nor in the other countries of the European Union).
On 24 May 2022, the European Court of Justice also restored the parliamentary immunity of three Catalan MEPs — President Carles Puigdemont, Minister Toni Comín and Minister Prof. Dr. Clara Ponsatí. The lawyers of the three Catalans politically persecuted by Spain see this as a stage victory. The final decision in these proceedings is still pending, but trial observers expect another victory for the Catalans.
Meanwhile, news is leaking out that the Catalangate scandal is apparently only the tip of the iceberg and that Spain's dirty war against the Catalan national minority has been and is being waged on a much larger scale than previously known. In any functioning democracy, the government would have been overthrown long ago over what is already known. As is well known, in the U.S.A. Nixon lost his presidency as a result of a comparable scandal on a much smaller scale. But Spain's Teflon Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is not thinking of resigning and continues to try to keep the scandal small through pawn sacrifices and diversionary manoeuvres.
Meanwhile, while the European Union continues to abandon millions of Catalan Union citizens and betray their rights, the Spanish judiciary is preparing to revoke the clemency pardons, by means of which the Spanish central government pardoned the imprisoned political prisoners from Catalonia — their unlawful sentencing to long prison terms without the existence of crimes or corresponding bases in the Spanish penal code will forever go down in the history books of Europe and the world as Spain's disgrace and shame — and to send the prominent Catalans back to prison. Spain's deep state seeks provocation and obviously wants to unleash popular anger in Catalonia in order to have a supposed handle for deploying police and military in the country still under Spain's administration, whose parliament declared Catalonia's independence from Spain on 27 October 2017 in accordance with international law.