These last few years of indiscriminate repression against the Catalan independence movement have accustomed us to bad news from Spain's internal jurisdiction and, for that reason, the verdict stating that Mossos d'Esquadra police chief Josep Lluís Trapero along with Teresa Laplana, Pere Soler and Cèsar Puig are not guilty has surprised people both at home and abroad.
The ruling is not the result of chance, but the product of a job very well done, of an excellent legal strategy and a very clear defensive determination which, ultimately, is the only way in which challenges of this magnitude can be addressed. And in addition to all that, we must add, the intellectual and professional honesty of two judges who knew how to shoulder, with courage and determination, the personal cost which the resolution they have issued will have.
After reading it carefully, it is evident that it is a judgment based on law, with a reasoned and, clearly, methodical and logical assessment of the evidence presented, and framed in a democratic understanding of the facts and the applicable law, so it is frankly very difficult to imagine any revocation of this sentence through appeal or cassation. Although we have already seen everything.
As the only prosecution in this case was presented by the public prosecutors, it will depend on them whether the verdict is appealed or not. If it is, it will first be sent to the appeals chamber of the sentencing court, the National Audience itself, and then, depending on the result, an appeal could be made to the Supreme Court.
In any case, the specific procedural path that this judgment may navigate is not the most important matter right now, but rather, the path that it takes from a broader perspective, that is, how it will affect all of the court proceedings that were opened after the 1st October referendum. This is where it may be most important, and for several reasons.
The 1st October was not a conjunction of crimes, but a broad, massive and collective democratic exercise, which only those who live anchored in a past can conceptualize as criminal, and no longer is this apparent solely in other parts of Europe.
What this ruling establishes is, among other things, that a distinct, more objective, democratic and accurate assessment of the evidence leads inevitably to a very different result from that established by the Supreme Court. This is precisely what the Schleswig-Holstein High Court ruled in July 2018 [in the Carles Puigdemont extradition hearing] and which so angered the Supreme Court and every wristband-wearing patriot around.
The facts of the matter, for which nine people are serving prison sentences today, do not constitute a crime, and a guilty verdict can only be reached through a very exceptional and erroneous assessment of the evidence, which is what the Supreme Court did, and what has caused so much pain.
When a sentence is predetermined, for whatever reasons, the assessment of the evidence always deviates from the legally established rules for the jurisdictional function concerned, and the result, necessarily, ends up being erroneous and, therefore, unjust. On the contrary, when the rules of logic, of sound criticism are followed and it is assessed according to criteria that are rational and acceptable to an average citizen, then a correct result is reached, be it conviction or acquittal.
The judgment of justices Sáez and Vieira is an example of the correct assessment of evidence and, without going into details, one good example is how they dealt with the huge number of videos of the events of October 1st, 2017.
Regarding those videos, the two judges conclude: “These documents constitute an anecdote of what must have happened on October 1st in hundreds of voting stations. They are difficult to interpret and only allow us to understand the climate of tension that was experienced”.
And, what do you know, the conclusion reached by the Schleswig-Holstein court, after viewing the 72 videos that Spanish Supreme Court judge Llarena sent them, was identical, stating that they did not make it possible to assert any criminal conduct.
What is surprising is not that these two courts share such an assessment, but rather that a body that prides itself on so much knowledge and impartiality does not see it in the same way and, moreover, attributes to the material a totally contrary and criminalizing character. The explanation, surely, is in the way of understanding the law and in the way in which it has been used to implement a certain political vision rather than to carry out justice.
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention or the Cour in Brussels do not differ much from these approaches in terms of what lies behind the persecution of the Catalan pro-independence leaders and, sooner rather than later, a clear image of something we have been saying for more than three years will begin to emerge.
To put it more clearly: from below and from above, from within and from without, it is beginning to become evident that the understanding that the Supreme Court, and its most fervent followers, have maintained about the events of the 1st October referendum does not correspond with reality and, furthermore, those events are far from being criminal.
This ruling opens the way for those other judges who want to act with independence, rationality and intellectual honesty, without looking sideways at the Supreme Court, to reach similar conclusions
Obviously, the acquittal of Trapero, Laplana, Soler and Puig will not produce immediate consequences for those convicted for the independence process; to affirm the opposite would be to deceive, but it is producing such effects in terms of the overall judicial scaffold erected to repress the pro-independence people and that is already very positive.
There were not a few who believed that once the Supreme Court established some facts as proven and related them to specific laws, no court could contradict it. In that, they were wrong because every judge and court must be free and independent when assessing the evidence and reaching its decision, in this case to acquit.
This ruling, in addition to all of the above, opens the way for those other judges who want to act with independence, rationality and intellectual honesty, without looking sideways at the Supreme Court, to reach similar conclusions when they have to prosecute the more than 2,850 people targeted who are pending trial as a result of the events of 1st October.
The 1st October was not a conjunction of offences, but a broad, massive and collective democratic exercise, which only those who live anchored in a past - which must be disposed of as soon as possible - can conceptualize as criminal, and no longer is this apparent solely in other parts of Europe. Surely this is the greatest contribution of a judgement that, as I say, is just, not because of the acquittals - although for that reason too - but because it respects fundamental rights and basic democratic principles.
And it is so because the sentence also notes something that we have been preaching for too long already: the Spanish legal system also includes those norms which are dictated within the European Union and which guarantee our rights and freedoms, such as those contained in the European Union's Charter of Fundamental Rights.
In short, from Schleswig to Trapero, it is being shown that no matter how much politics is judicialized, in the end, when there is honesty, the law ends up putting things in their place.