The public prosecutors in the High Court of Catalonia are demanding 7 years in prison, a 32-year ban on holding public office and a 30,000 euro fine for Josep Maria Jové, current ERC deputy in the Catalan Parliament and president of the party's National Council, and 6 years and three months in prison, a ban from office for 27 years and 3 months, and a fine of 24,000 euros for Lluís Salvadó, current chairperson of the Port of Barcelona, for the crimes of misuse of funds, abuse of authority and disobedience for their roles in the organization of the 1st October 2017 referendum, when they were leading officials in the Catalan department of the vice-presidency, economy and finance. As well, for the current Catalan culture minister, Natàlia Garriga, the prosecutors seek a one-year ban from office and a fine of 18,000 euros for disobedience of the Constitutional Court in her role in the preparations for the independence vote, working under the direction of Jové, according to the proposed indictment released by the prosecution service this Friday.
In the indictment, prosecutor Pedro Ariche has withdrawn the accusation for the crime of revealing secrets (penalized with up to 5 years' prison), which would have increased the jail demand. However, in addition to the above penalties, he demands that Jové and Salvadó return 754,920 euros to the public treasury for the expenses of a program to homogenize the Catalan treasury, a spending item which he asserts demonstrates that they wanted to create a structure of state. He does not demand any civil liability from them for the referendum expenses, although the investigating magistrate judge had set an amount of more than 2 million euros, deposited by contributions from volunteers.
No 'attenuated' misuse of funds
Thus, with these sentence demands, the prosecutor maintains the criteria laid down by the Supreme Court and the chief public prosecutor, asserting that the 1st October referendum expenses must be classified as 'aggravated' embezzlement (punished with a maximum of 8 years in prison) - which they assert, meets the definition that the misappropriation of the funds in this crime involved personal profit since the money was used 'for a particular benefit'. Thus they are not charged with 'attenuated' misuse of funds, the new offence, with a maximum penalty of 4 years' prison, which was inserted into the Penal Code reform agreed by ERC and the PSOE and specifically intended by the Catalan party to moderate the penalties that people such as the former officials of ERC and Junts will face in several major referendum cases that are still pending.
After the public prosecutors, the state solicitors and Vox (conducting a private prosecution) will have to present their indictments, and finally the three defence lawyers will do the same. The court to try the three ERC politicians consistts of judges Jesús María Barrientos, Carlos Ramos and Fernando Lacaba, and has yet to set the date of the trial.
Jové holds the "most responsibility"
In the 49-page indictment, prosecutor Ariche, states that Josep Maria Jové, then secretary general of the Catalan government department of the vice presidency, economy and finance, was one of the political negotiators, and especially with the CUP, for taking forward the process of moving to independence and constructing the required state structures, according to notes from 2016 in his Moleskine notebook and in the famous Enfocats report, an ambiguous PowerPoint presentation on the path to Catalan independence, confiscated from his home. According to the prosecutor, the number two at the economy department was "the person with most responsibility for the coordination of the illegal referendum", and the Catalan government dismissed him in September to avoid the daily fines of 12,000 euros which the Constitutional Court had imposed on him for disobedience.
Of Jové's actions, the prosecutor recounts the push for the agreement with Catalonia's Idescat statistical agency in order to obtain the population census and then use it to create an electoral roll for the vote. Initially, this action was claimed as evidence of the crime of revealing secrets. Pedro Ariche specifies that this census could not be used due to the intervention of the police. As for Garriga's actions, he specifies that, following Jové's orders, and without paying attention to the fact that the Constitutional Court had suspended the referendum, she made several arrangements, such as contacting a business woman to store bins in warehouses, which were comandeered by the police, and other management actions.
The evidence of misuse of funds
In addition, the text specifies that in July 2017 the competence for electoral processes, which was in under the Catalan department of governance, was shifted to the vice presidency, headed by Oriol Junqueras, and "under his direction Jové began the preparation and execution of the referendum, and had economic and logistical resources available". Specifically, Ariche details that in the Catalan government's 2017 budget, an item of 5.8 million euros was included for electoral processes. He adds that addition sums included, in order to enhance the so-called state structures, were a sum of 57.4 million euros for the development of the Catalan Tax Agency (ATC). Ariche maintains that "the preparations for the 1st October vote and the subsequent expenses made a mockery of state control of the Catalan governments' accounts".
The Catalan Treasury
In addition to the organization of the 1st October referendum, the prosecutor states that Jové and, under his charge, Lluís Salvadó, who was the secretary of the Treasury, devised a program to homogenize taxes that "under the 'formal appearance of introducing improvements in tax management, sought, outside of the legal channels, to increase the tax management and collection capacity of the Catalan Tax Agency of funds that had not been transferred [to Catalan control] by the state'. Specifically, Ariche specifies that the aim was to "control the total amount of taxes collected in the form of personal income tax and VAT, as well as social security contributions, from the public sector of Catalonia, including councils and universities, a figure that ranged from 4,500 and 5,000 million euros per year". He maintains that the program provided for operational changes from October 2017, and that "there was nothing to prevent that, in the face of a Unilateral Declaration of Independence due to lack of agreement with the Spanish state, the new Catalan administration could finance itself temporarily through the funds thus collected". In addition, he states that they signed agreements with public bodies for the transfer of tax management - specifically, with 148 entities in which the Catalan government held a stake, and 3 town councils, including that of Alcarràs.
Over this Treasury program, the prosecutor accuses Jové and Salvadó of the crime of ordinary misuse of funds (art. 432.1.2) and with the aggravating factor that the amount spent exceeds 250,000 euros. In addition, he demands that they return the cost of the program, valued at around 700,000 euros, and the cost of 'deprogramming', 50,335 euros, an action carried out when the state imposed direct rule on the Catalan government under Article 155.