The decision of the Spanish prosecutor's office not to rescue Mariano Rajoy from Andorran justice and allow its investigation linked to Operation Catalonia means that the former Spanish prime minister moves closer to the dock of a court in the small Pyrenean country. It is clear that there are many, many motives behind the prosecutors' decision, but it nevertheless commands one's attention that the institution has opted not to intervene in the request for assistance of a former Spanish PM. There are reasons of substance and also of form. Regarding the first, Rajoy is regarded as responsible for allowing, during his time as prime minister, the worst possible entanglement of the Spanish security forces through the creation of the unofficial brigade led by Villarejo and colleagues, which was nothing more than a crude use of state funds to persecute the Catalan independence movement as if it were the comic adventures of Pepe Gotera y Otilio, chapuzas a domicilio.
Operation Catalunya was a major scandal, it has left an indelible mark that compromises the Spanish security forces, it has fostered an international image of Spain more in line with a banana monarchy than a reliable European Union partner and, in short, it allowed the state to fall hostage to a character like Villarejo, who has ended up using his collection of compromising video and audio recordings for his own benefit. The consequences of this have clearly been harmful for the independence movement, but the collateral damage to the Spanish state has been very great. The tandem of Mariano Rajoy and interior minister Jorge Fernández Díaz is responsible for this and that is why it is not so strange that the prosecution has not involved itself.
The fact that the investigation is in Andorra and not in Spain's National Audience or Supreme Court must also have helped, because the expropriation section of what ended up being the confiscation and subsequent dissolution of the Banca Privada de Andorra will be part of one of the most incomprehensible episodes of the Spanish state's efforts in searching for any trace that could end up leading to an accusation of money held abroad by former Catalan president Jordi Pujol and also of Artur Mas. Now, if there is no sudden change of script, the Spanish judiciary will have shown its claws to a Rajoy with whom it never had a special harmony, more due to his blandness than for anything else. What happens from now on will depend on the specific allegations that end up being presented for a crime that is not at all trivial, attempting to intimidate a foreign government - in this case, that of Andorra - through false information and allegedly through threats and coercion.
The initial decision of the Madrid High Court (TSJM) paralyzing Andorra's application for rogatory letters is now in doubt, through the position taken by the prosecution, which should end up turning the whole case around. Rajoy's manoeuvre has failed to stop his summons and it is normal that the first nerves have appeared among the former government's leadership. Something that started with very little political profile and practically no media coverage, and also with a certain delay from Andorran justice, first picked up speed in the neighbouring country and then was given a minimal push, allowing one to think that, just maybe, Rajoy will end up in the dock of an Andorran court. It would be completely unprecedented and good news for the contaminated and damaged Spanish justice system.
But knowing Spanish justice, the celebratory bells should not be rung out yet because many things could still happen, and Rajoy will end up going to all the instances necessary to change the prosecution's position and avoid the possible implications if it goes ahead. We are not, therefore, at the end, although an important step has been taken. And the action of the Drets legal collective has been very important both in disseminating the information on the problem and in the work done.