In the Catalan judicial imagination, there are two illustrious weddings that end in conviction. The first, that of Fèlix Millet’s daughter. The former director of the Palau de la Música ordered the stalls to be covered to celebrate a high-end banquet and charged the party’s bill to the cultural entity’s accounts. Then, he charged half to his in-laws. Profit motive, enrichment, and family divorce after the scheme was discovered… The other is a fantasy of the Supreme Court to justify its refusal to apply amnesty to Carles Puigdemont and the rest of the procés leaders.
Read more Putin is tightening the rope a lot
Judge Pablo Llarena compared the 1-O referendum to the wedding banquet of a son paid with public money. According to Llarena, the former president passed the expenses of his “personal desires” to the Generalitat; and, since the money did not come out of his pocket, he enriched himself. The Criminal Chamber joined the feast with their colleague: “The official who contracts the celebration of his daughter’s wedding banquet assumes a payment obligation (…) If he pays the amount with public funds, his assets increase and the official enriches himself personally.”
The Amnesty law of the procés excluded actions that involved personal patrimonial benefit. How the wedding is paid for is irrelevant; what matters is the bride’s father’s bank account. The Supreme Court holds that Puigdemont benefited economically from 1-O. The rest of the objections to avoid complying with the Amnesty law raised by Llarena and the chamber have been dismantled by the Constitutional Court (TC) and the Court of Justice of the EU. Neither the law is unconstitutional nor did the procés affect European economic interests.
Llarena himself has admitted that his resistance only has the icing on the cake of enrichment left, and it will be bitter if the Constitutional Court dismantles the wedding theory. Supreme Court judge Ana Ferrer already called it a “legal fiction” in a dissenting opinion.
The TC addresses the wedding thesis, the last judicial stronghold against the amnesty of the 1-O leaders
The independence link ended in a breakup due to incompatibility of characters and partisanship, but the couple has shared the judicial mortgage for nine years. The TC plenary meets on Tuesday with the script already written to address Jordi Turull’s appeal. The judge in charge of the sentence, the conservative José María Macías, clings to the Supreme Court’s narrative. The progressive majority will reject it and transfer the decision to the next plenary, scheduled for October 5. Either Macías drafts a sentence contrary to his view, or another judge will do so so that the court ends up ordering the Supreme Court to grant amnesty to the independence leaders.
Read more Long live Mbappé
Delaying decisions in the courts are frequent, so caution is imposed on the schedule for Puigdemont’s return and Oriol Junqueras’s political rehabilitation. However, even the most skeptical today sense the new scenario. Even more so when Llarena himself admits the possibility of lifting the arrest warrant against the former president under new “specific circumstances,” such as a decision by the Constitutional Court.
The political calendar also plays a role, and not only because of the May municipal elections. Alongside the right-wing offensive against Pedro Sánchez, the Ceuta crisis, and the corruption around the PSOE, the independence ranks see an interest from the Supreme Court in attributing to Sánchez the image of Puigdemont’s return before the general elections. And the closer to the polls, the better, seeking mobilization – “Let’s get them!” – that harms the PSOE leader’s prospects.
The Supreme Court – it wrote in a sentence – does not want to be a “silent mouth” that merely applies amnesty at the legislator’s will, and in February the first electoral window of 2027 opens for a general election, as the PSOE cadres desire. The Court of Auditors also exhausts the pages of its anti-amnesty agenda. Three months ago, European justice responded to counselor Elena Hernáez endorsing the law. Puigdemont’s defense already warns of claiming from the State for “violating community law.” The deadline for the thirty or so prosecuted independence officials to request amnesty once again ended yesterday. From Monday, an accounting process of more than six years should end.
Read more Trump bans CNN, MSNOW, and Politico from White House access for spreading «fake news»
