"If a state violates fundamental rights, then the rule of law does not exist". This was the affirmation of Francina Esteve, professor of international law at the University of Girona, in the First Catalan Congress in Defence of the Rule of Law, held on Saturday in Barcelona, attracting four hundred national and international experts in the spheres of justice and human rights to discuss different aspects of Catalonia's current juridically-exceptional situation.
The Congress, held in University of Barcelona's historic Paranimf hall, consisted of three debates tackling different issues; Esteve spoke about the crisis of fundamental rights in Catalonia and advised that the police actions during the referendum of 1st October last year could constitute a breach of article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which forbids "inhuman or degrading treatment". As well, the Girona professor drew attention to the requirements for the admission of cases to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR): "90% of cases presented are rejected".
For her part, Mariona Llobet, professor of criminal law at Barcelona's Pompeu Fabra University, noted the "numerous unconstitutional interpretations of criminal offences made by Spanish courts" and argued that laying charges of terrorism against members of the pro-independence groups Committees of Defence of the Republic (CDR) is in breach of the law.
Another of those taking part was lawyer Ana Stanic, founder of the E&A Law partnership, who has advised the Slovenian government on questions of international and EU law, and whose father was one of those responsible for the organization of Slovenia's independence referendum in 1990.
Stanic went through the European and international human rights norms that the Spanish state has violated in the Catalan case, asserting that "the judicial actions taken against the Catalan Parliament and its speaker are unprecedented in the Western democracies”. She concluded that the actions taken by the Spanish government and the Constitutional Court violate articles 3, 6, 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights and that if they are brought before the European Court of Human Rights, it will have to rule on the matter.