It is not very often that good news appears in relation to the journey of the Catalan independence process through the courts. But today, the electoral commission of academic and legal experts created for the referendum of October 1st, 2017 has been acquitted on charges of disobedience and usurpation of public functions. Their trial took place in March.
Barcelona's criminal court number 11 found the five members of the commission not guilty. The verdict states that it was not proven that they gave any instructions or orders or that they met again after the measures taken by the Constutional Court in September 2017 calling for the dissolution of the body.
"No action by them has been proven", says the resolution, referring to the period after the personal warning was given by the Consitutional Court, noting that all witnesses deny any such activity and "there is no document in the case that indicates it".
The prosecution had been asking for 2 years and nine months imprisonment for the group of experts, arguing that they signed resolutions despite knowing that the Constitutional Court had suspended the laws passed by Parliament that created their commission.
The judge acquitted Jordi Matas, professor of Political Science at the University of Barcelona (UB), who chaired the commission; Tània Verge, professor of Political Science at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF); Marc Marsal, professor of Administrative Law at the UB; Josep Pagès, professor of Constitutional Law at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB); and the lawyer Marta Alsina.
At trial, they all argued that they had not disobeyed the orders of the court when it suspended the Catalan Parliament's laws of disconnection, because they all resigned before the referendum.
The period under the spotlight in the trial was the three week interval starting on September 6th, 2017, when a stormy session of the Catalan Parliament passed the law to allow the October 1st referendum, also including the nomination of the electoral commission members, who had the mission of overseeing the transparency and fairness of the independence vote. They were appointed the next day by the same plenary session.
On 20th September, the Constitutional Court imposed coercive fines of 12,000 euros per day on each commision member if they did not cease to act as such. On 26th September, the Spanish state gazette published a letter presented to the Constitutional Court by the five commission members in which they declared their resignation and nullified the agreements adopted until then.
The president of the Spanish Constitutional Court, Juan José González Rivas, stated in a Septemberr 2018 media interview that the electoral commission members had "scrupulously complied" with the requirements made by the court he still heads. This evidence, unknown to the defence lawyers when the trial took place in March, was presented to the judge as new documentary evidence just three days ago.