The decision by judge Pablo Llarena, of Spain's Supreme Court, to maintain the arrest warrant for the Catalan president-in-exile Carles Puigdemont for misuse of public funds, disregarding the amnesty law, constitutes a complete disavowal by the judiciary of the legislative power and is proof that the Spanish state is far from ending its repression and persecution of the Catalan independence movement. In fact, also included in this resolution from Llarena are the then-ministers Toni ComĂn and LluĂs Puig. But the thing is that, in a second ruling, this one by the presiding judge of the Supreme Court's second chamber, Manuel Marchena, it is ruled that the amnesty does not apply to Oriol Junqueras, RaĂĽl Romeva, Jordi Turull and Dolors Bassa either, all four of whom were convicted over the 2017 independence process and referendum, and the judge therefore maintains their ban on holding public office until 2031.
Any adjective used to describe the decision of the Supreme Court falls short and is not strong enough to describe the step taken this Monday. It is true that there was a real possibility that all of this would end up occurring, but a mood had been created that seem to conclude that it was the least likely hypothesis. The often-proclaimed phrase about "turning a page" had a place to land in the amnesty law for all cases and now it has been blown sky high. Because it is clear that the legal protection written into the final wording and the enormous difficulties in reaching an agreement on the legislative text sought to do two things: firstly, to protect all the anonymous citizens who because of their status as, say, members of CDR groups or part of any judicial case that was inflated so that they were considered guilty, the amnesty gave them the protection of the legislator. Secondly, that the political leadership of the events around the 2027 referendum would have the necessary legal protection against the audacity of any Supreme Court judge.
Apparently, nothing is sufficient, interpretation is free and everyone can do exactly what they want. A practice that is most similar to the jungle. Judicial, of course. The Spanish state continues to think that the best formula to avoid problems with Catalan independentism is to take hostages. That a few people, if possible, those who are important enough so that no one forgets them in the coming years, should have their fundamental rights and freedoms violated. It is, without a doubt, a short-term view that could have the opposite effect to the one intended. It wouldn't be the first time. As the saying goes, you can't push your luck forever.
The Spanish state continues to think that the best formula to avoid problems with Catalan independentism is to take hostages
The Supreme Court, which has interpreted its own name literally, has taken the text of the amnesty, wrung it out and twisted its words, with a surprising - or not - coincidence between the theses of Marchena and Llarena, which also take on board the theses of the four disobedient prosecutors in the leaders' trial who rebelled against the prosecutor general of the state. All the while, performing pirouettes and sleight of hand with concepts such as profit motive and enrichment. And that enrichment is not what ordinary mortals think, but rather, it is something else, according to the Supreme Court judges. It is of no importance that no one was accused of putting a single euro in their pocket, because now it has mutated, according to the judges, and it has come to mean a patrimonial benefit for its leaders.
Marchena says the following: "They did with the patrimony that other people entrusted to them what they could not or did not want to do with their own patrimony. They allocated it to their own personal goals, not because they were politicians, they no longer have that particular or sectarian side. Public funds put at the service of their ends were also private, even if they could be shared by a greater or lesser number of people." As for the effect of all this on the finances of the European Union, it is a matter of fact. He speaks of a "potential impact" on the Union's budget and asserts that "a rupture of European territorial integrity - this disconnection existed, even if it lasted only for a few seconds - contained a serious danger of affecting the financial interests" of the EU. In fact, in her dissenting opinion in the ruling of the second chamber, the Supreme Court judge Ana Ferrer warned that "due to all of this, to now combine the diversion of funds in pursuit of an illicit political objective, with the desire to obtain an economically evaluable particular benefit, results in the incorporation of a nuance that is new, and at the same time dangerous, in as much as it twists the profiles of the profit motive, in a kind of methodological inversion that, although it must based on the precepts of the law that it is now up to us to apply, ends up redefining an element of the offence".
The biggest risk of venturing into unknown paths is always that one finds oneself on a path with many more precipices than first meets the eye. And, perhaps, this Monday, as the judicial missile has exploded against the amnesty, it is heading for one of those.