Former deputy speaker of the Catalan Parliament, Josep Costa, has decided to disobey the Catalan High Court and has announced by surprise via Twitter that he will not appear before a judge as per his summons scheduled for this Wednesday afternoon, over alleged disobedience in the parliamentary officers' decision in 2019 to allow debates on the Spanish monarchy and Catalan self-determination. The announcement was made just two hours before the time he was summoned, and just after the statement by former speaker Roger Torrent and Adriana Delgado, a former member of the Parliamentary Bureau, who appeared this morning on the same accusation.
Costa attempted to get the Spanish Constitutional Court to suspend the case so that it could be transferred to the European Court of Human Rights. But the Constitutional Court has not yet resolved the interim measures he requested, and therefore, the judicial machinery was activated today against part of the parliamentary Bureau led by speaker Torrent, to allow Parliament to debate resolutions on the monarchy and self-determination in November 2019, despite warnings from the chamber's legal advisors that this could violate the Constitutional Court's ban on these parliamentary discussions.
Testifying this morning, Torrent and Delgado made use of their right not to testify and only answered a few questions put by their lawyers. They are accused of disobedience.
This afternoon, Costa, also accused of disobedience in parliament, will disobey the court and not appear as requested before the judge Maria Eugència Alegret. He asserts that he does not recognize the authority of the High Court of Catalonia to judge any agreement made by Parliament. "It makes no sense to dialogue with repressive judges and prosecutors, who do not understand basic concepts such as the separation of powers," he said in his tweet early this afternoon, stating that it is his intention to fight the accusation at European level with the action he has already opened and the related appeal for interim protection, lodged by not yet considered, in the Constitutional Court.
Costa's European route
Josep Costa has taken the case to the Constitutional Court calling for its suspension, which would thus open the way for him to present the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
According to the submission presented to the Constitutional Court, to which ElNacional.cat has had access, he alleges an "unfounded criminal prosecution", "contamination and lack of impartiality" and human rights violations, which is the case he wants to bring to Europe. The lawyers, including Gonzalo Boye, are demanding as an interim measure the suspension of the case in order to be able to transfer the case to the European Court of Human Rights.