Barcelona's court number 13 seems to be back on the case, after the death in November of its presiding judge, Juan Antonio Ramírez Sunyer, who was, unusually, given a valedictory with the highest honours by the president of Spain's Judicial Council and Supreme Court, Carlos Lesmes, who even sent his colleague a letter just a few hours before his death, expressing a heartfelt recognition of his work and adding the phrase "you changed the course of our country's history". Now, a new judicial appointment has been made, new summonses are being sent and new names investigated.
In this case, they are hunting big game once again, since the two new targets for investigation called to testify on January 23rd are the directors of Catalan public broadcasting networks TV3 and Catalunya Ràdio, Vicent Sanchis and Saül Gordillo respectively. Gordillo, in addition, is unofficially the candidate from the pro-independence parties to chair the Catalan Broadcasting Corporation (CCMA) which both broadcast media are part of. Technically, the renovation of the CCMA board has been suspended because the anti-independence Ciudadanos (Cs) group backed out of a agreement reached on the matter, involving both unionist and pro-independence parties. In the Cs party, this agreement had led to great nervousness, especially when Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez, defended himself in parliament by pointing out the accord as evidence that Cs also reach agreements at times with the Catalan independence parties.
The new judge of court 13 is, almost certainly, investigating if there was any misuse of public funds or disobedience in broadcasting the publicity for the 2017 referendum. From these inquiries, it will become known exactly what accusation is being made against the broadcasting bosses to maintain them under investigation. It never ceases to amaze how this case keeps yielding new probes, given that it started out looking into statements on the independence process made by former judge and senator Santi Vidal in early 2017. Nobody remembers any more, but that's how it happened. And that thread began to form an ever-growing ball of yarn which seems to be endless and has ended up as a kind of general case against the independence movement. A bottomless well.
Catalonia's public media have long been an unconcealed object of desire for the unionist parties. In fact, until just hours before the suspension of the Catalan government and the application of article 155 in October 2017, the intention of the Rajoy government and the Ciudadanos party was that the intervention would also include the Catalan media. The Socialists first hesitated and then ended up demanding that they be left outside the 155 measures. However, unionist aggression towards the media and its leaders has not diminished, in a campaign that has a lot to do with the TV3's audience leadership and Catalunya Ràdio's solid position. That's what presses their button: the influence and prestige of these media.