Catalan president Quim Torra has responded to the announcement today he will go to trial over not removing yellow ribbons from public buildings at the end of September. He highlighted the speed with which his process is moving, contrasting it with the time taken in the case following the 2017 referendum, which has seen pro-independence leaders spending months in provisional detention: "Justice is slow only when it wants to be".
A statement released by the president's office says that "it's the clearest demonstration of the interested swiftness of the justice system". "We believe we're facing a markedly rushed assignation [of a date]", the statement says, going on to claim that this has led to the judges in the case breaking the procedure and order for doing things set out in the relevant legislation.
The president's office says that judges and courts should not only be impartial, but that they should "have the appearance [of impartiality] too", something they believe their handling of this case "puts into doubt". As such, they say they will "carry out the pertinent legal actions against this procedural error which shows that haste is the enemy of rigour".
The other problem they note with the dates chosen, 25th and 26th September, is that the president should be attending the general policy debate in the Catalan Parliament then. His lawyer, meanwhile, has another court appearance scheduled for that day, for a client who takes priority being in prison.