The Kingdom of Spain has gained some more time to respond to the demands for violation of political rights and freedom of expression, presented by the nine pro-independence political prisoners against the actions of the Supreme Court, at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The office of the state solicitors, legal representatives of the Spanish government, had until the middle of this month to respond to the second allegations of the lawyers of the Catalan independentist leaders and the Strasbourg-based court has now given it a new deadline: July 29th. In this procedure, different time extensions have been requested, both from the political prisoners and from the state. However, one key question now is whether the state hopes to include the application of the amnesty law as evidence of compensation. For now, the lawyers of the nine political prisoners have insisted that the Supreme Court violated their political and social rights, and in the text presented by the former president of the Òmnium Cultural NGO, Jordi Cuixart, the state is accused of going off on a tangent and of not responding with reasoned arguments to the six questions asked by the ECHR.
Specifically, lawyer Benet Salellas, on behalf of Cuixart, states that the state solicitor's office has done no more than reproduce the ruling of the Supreme Court - which convicted them of sedition, misuse of public funds and disobedience in 2019 - and did the same with the ruling of the Constitutional Court (TC), which validated the actions of the trial court, without citing, however, the dissenting votes that argued that the sentences of from 9 to 13 years were "disproportionate." The lawyers for the political prisoners do, however, refer to the arguments of the progressive judges Juan Antonio Xiol and María Luisa Balaguer, and share them with the ECHR.
First responses from the ECHR
The Human Rights court decided in September 2023 to admit the claims of the political prisoners for consideration and unified them into a single procedure (Jordi Turull and eight others against Spain, in claim no. 30096/21), although the state solicitors have to respond individually, case by case. Now, the state has gained a few more weeks of margin and will respond when the amnesty law has been in force for a month, meaning that possibly the unknowns about whether the Supreme Court is to take the law to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) will have already disappeared, and the application of the law to the political prisoners would thus be frozen.
In parallel with the case of the political prisoners, the ECHR has to resolve, separately, the demands of the former Catalan government minister and general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, the former deputy Jordi Sànchez and the former vice president Oriol Junqueras, over violation of their political rights through their being sent to prison over the referendum case. Judge Pablo Llarena sent Turull to prison in March 2018, when he was about to face a second investiture vote to become president of the Generalitat; Jordi Sànchez denounced that his political rights were violated on five occasions by decisions of the Spanish judicial authorities when he was elected a deputy for Junts; and equally for Junqueras, who also had the support of the precedent set by the ECJ when it ruled that he had immunity as a European parliamentarian, but the Supreme Court condemned him anyway. Spain's response is that Turull, Sànchez and the rest of the political prisoners caused an "overload" of the TC, and now the rulings of the ECHR are awaited regarding the violation of the political rights of Junqueras, Turull and Sànchez.
Damage "incalculable", but specific figures claimed
The political prisoners' lawyers agree that the damage caused by their persecution for being pro-independence and the action of the Supreme Court, in dictating their preventive detention and high sentences, is "incalculable." The partial pardons from the PSOE government came when they had already spent more than three years in prison, yet the state solicitors make much of the dates of their release, which are set at June 23rd, 2021.
The amnesty law has not foreseen any compensation, only the extinction of criminal responsibility and of any criminal record they may have left. It will also have to be seen whether the Supreme Court, with its interpretation of the amnesty, does not apply it due to judicial consultations sent to the ECJ, and, in this case, maintains the bans on holding public office that remain in force against the ERC leader, Oriol Junqueras, and the former ministers Turull, and Raül Romeva and Dolors Bassa for the crime of misuse of funds, until 2031 for Junqueras and 2030 for the other three. For its part, the state insists that despite being sentenced to between 9 and 13 years in prison, the time they were behind bars was "less than 4 years." And it details it case by case: for example, the politicians spent 1,328 days in prison (3 years and 7 months) and the Jordis 1,345 (3 years and 8 months).
Despite the impossibility of calculating damages, the lawyers have had to present specific claims for compensation for the violation of rights to the Spanish state. The majority have tried to make use of objective measurements, having been informed that the ECHR does not approve or grant large amounts in civil liabilities. For example, the case of the Kurdish politician Selahahin Demirtas, imprisoned since 2016 and whose immediate release by Turkey was ordered by the Human Rights court, is a reference used by the Catalan political prisoners' lawyers due to their similarities; in the final sentence, the court ordered that he be compensated with around 25,000 euros and another 20,000 be paid for the cost of his defence. Furthermore, the majority of the political prisoners (except Turull and the ex-speaker of Parliament, Carme Forcadell) have already reported their situation to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, where civil liability cannot be requested, but in this case it was for the time they spent in preventive detention, which it concluded was "arbitrary". However, the Supreme Court, led by Manuel Marchena, did not even flinch.
Thus, the lawyer Jordi Pina, on behalf of the former ministers Jordi Turull and Josep Rull and the former president of the ANC, Jordi Sànchez, has requested that Spain compensate them with 70,000 euros each. The objective reference is that this amount is the same as that approved by the National Audience, ratified by the Supreme Court, in the compensation that the government had to pay to Joan Besolí, partner of the former president of Barça, Sandro Rosell, for having spent, like him, two years in prison and then being acquitted. Judit Gené requests the same for Quim Forn, having now assumed his defence. For his part, Andreu Van den Eynde requests compensation of 35 euros per day in prison, using Spanish sentences as a reference, the same as Iñigo Iruín for the then-speaker of Parliament, Carme Forcadell. Thus, Junqueras claims about 46,000 euros from the state and Romeva and Bassa, about 43,000 euros.
Òmnium demands a public rectification
Finally, Òmnium has estimated the compensation claim to the state for Jordi Cuixart at 100,000 euros for the 3 years and 8 months that he was in prison. The cultural body also requests a public rectification from the Spanish authorities for the persecution of the social movement leader. And in the second allegations, lawyer Benet Salellas reiterates the violation of Jordi Cuixart's fundamental rights by the Spanish state and the Supreme Court because "his imprisonment is a threat to activism and freedom of expression." Furthermore, the lawyer insists that the demonstrations in which he took part, "far from being violent, were acts of legitimate citizen protest, responding to broad popular support in favour of the 1st October self-determination referendum." The same argument is now supported in the defence of those accused of terrorism for the Tsunami Democràtic mobilizations against the sentencing of the pro-independence nine political prisoners, on October 14th, 2019.
Judges that supplant the legislator
In this regard, lawyer Andreu van den Eynde, defender of the three former ERC officials who have not come to trial, insists that "the violation of political rights has taken place with the aim of silencing a political movement: the Catalan independence movement." He states that the pardon granted by the Spanish state "was conditional and partial" and that with the reform of the crime of misuse of funds, agreed by the PSOE government with ERC, and now with the amnesty law, the judges "do not interpret the law, but rather, it seems that they want to supplant the legislator", and he compares it to dictatorial regimes.