Catalan president in exile Carles Puigdemont has said this Friday that article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, the article used to suspend self-government last year, "has mothers and fathers, names and surnames" and has called for its "masterminds and perpetrators" to respond to the Catalan Parliament for the firing of more than 200 government officials. "I'm prepared to go to the Parliament and respond to all the questions I'm asked," he said.
"I ask the same [of them]: that they respond and say if their firing was appropriate and can be considered acceptable in a state under the rule of law," he added. The president made the warning in a press conference from the Catalan government's delegation to Brussels alongside the new minister for digital policies and public administration, Jordi Puigneró and the 155 commissioner, Pau Villòria, after meeting with a group of workers fired through article 155.
For his part, Puigneró has warned Madrid that "dialogue" and "threats" (referring to the possibility of again intervening in Catalonia) are "contradictory" words. He also said that the Catalan government won't leave the officials who were fired "in the lurch". The minister announced that the government will take the measures "necessary" so that they won't have to suffer financial or any other types of consequences.
According to Puigneró, there were a total of 242 officials fired. In November, as a reaction to article 155, 19 of them presented an appeal to the High Court of Justice of Catalonia against the then-Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy. State prosecutors and lawyers, however, diverted it to the third chamber of the Supreme Court, where it remained paralysed for months.
In July, the lawyer Sílvia Requena has explained, coinciding with Pedro Sánchez taking office as the new prime minister, the case started up again. Requena complains, however, that the central administration is putting obstacles in the way of the workers who want to formally contest their dismissal.
According to Requena, administrative records are required for the 19 who want to present individual challenges but, so far, the documents they have received from Madrid are "empty".
She argues that these officials were dismissed for "allegedly ideological" reasons since they were closest to the president and the ministers. Of the 19, 12 have since returned to their jobs.