The president of Spain's judicial governance organ, Vicente Guilarte, has this Wednesday threatened Catalan MP Míriam Nogueras with the "taking of measures" after the "naming" of a list of Spanish judges and other institutional figures by the Together for Catalonia (Junts) leader in Madrid. The senior Junts figure in the Spanish capital, speaking in Congress, mentioned a number of figures such as the Supreme Court judge of the Catalan leaders' trial, Manuel Marchena, the Civil Guard colonel Daniel Baena, Civil Guard lieutenant-colonel Diego Pérez de los Cobos and the judge Francisco Pérez de los Cobos, the former National Audience judge, Concepción Espejel, the former CGPJ head Carlos Lesmes, the investigating judge of the Catalan leaders' trial, Pablo Llarena, and the investigating judge in the Sandro Rosell case, Carmen Lamela, as "obscure and indecent characters".
In her parliamentary speech, Míriam Nogueras criticized that the "accomplices of the politicization of the police and the Spanish justice system" would be "removed from office and tried immediately" in "any democratically normal country". And she regretted that, on the other hand, in the Spanish state "all these people have free rein to continue twisting the law and rights and to accuse many Catalan independence activists of being terrorists just because of their ideology". And this, she regretted, "happened in the face of the complicit silence of many MPs", she said, referring to those who were in the chamber with her this Tuesday during the processing of the amnesty law.
Vicente Guilarte's statement from the General Council for the Judiciary (CGPJ) asserted that "the naming - and the purpose implied in that - of several Supreme Court judges is inadmissible in a state of law, in which one of the fundamental principles is the separation of powers." Guilarte, provisional head of the judicial organ whose mandate has long since expired, added that "the people indicated, as well as any other holder of judicial office who may find themselves in the same circumstances, will find in the institution that I preside over the strongest opposition to these attacks in defence of the jurisdictional work carried out by all of them, to which I express my explicit support, and guarantee that, in the exercise of the powers that the law attributes to the CGPJ, the necessary measures foreseen by the legal system will be adopted to protect their independence." The statement was released this Wednesday by the current senior figure in Spanish judicial power.
Míriam Nogueras (Junts), naming a list of "obscure" and "indecent" figures: "In a normal country, they would be sacked and put on trial immediately."
Supreme Court condemns Nogueras' "unprecedented" statements
The Supreme Court has also come out in defence of the Spanish judges. Its president, Francisco Marín Castán, has regretted the "unprecedented" attack by Míriam Nogueras. "It does not fall in line with the minimum requirements of the separation of powers in a state of law."
Court snubs minister Félix Bolaños
These communiqués from the CGPJ and the Supreme Court arrived minutes after the interim president of the Supreme Court, Francisco Marín Castán, stood up Félix Bolaños, in a planned meeting between the two. Sources close to the Spanish presidency and justice ministry state that the meeting had been suspended on the grounds of "agenda problems that had appeared". The ministry links the cancelled meeting with the statements made by several pro-independence politicians. For the time being, no due date has been set for the meeting, which was initially supposed to be held this Wednesday at 12:30pm.