CARLOTA GUINDAL MADRID 05/27/2021
The TS questions that the Government grants itself a “self-indulgence” by freeing its partners in Congress
The Supreme Court yesterday placed the Government in a delicate position, and specifically the Ministry of Justice, after issuing a harsh report with several messages to the Executive against pardons to the pro-independence leaders convicted of sedition. The judiciary had received with suspicion the last words of Pedro Sánchez in which he assured in this regard that “revenge and reprisals” had to be avoided. The judiciary saw in that statement a veiled criticism of the sentence.
As a culmination of the tense relationship between the Government and the judiciary, the Supreme Court’s ruling was made public yesterday, against the pardons for not appreciating reasons of justice, equity and public utility that would justify the granting of the grace measure. The lack of repentance, the “undemocratic values” that those convicted today maintain are behaviors that, according to the court, “are the antipodes of what can be expected of those who aspire to be pardoned according to the parameters outlined by regulation”.
The reasons for the TS
It warns that the prisoners have the will to “repeat their undemocratic attack”
The court warns the Minister of Justice, Juan Carlos Campo, that those who have the will to “repeat the attack on the pillars of democratic coexistence” cannot be pardoned. The magistrates warn that the attitude of the condemned is far from showing regret for organizing the referendum on October 1 and approving the disconnection laws in 2017. The ruling signed by the six members of the court, chaired by Manuel Marchena, insists on the impossibility to pardon those who assume that the struggle for their political ideals would authorize citizen mobilization “to proclaim the non-observance of the laws, the substitution of the head of State and the unilateral displacement of the source of sovereignty”.
The report goes further and even calls into question, as the Office of the Prosecutor has already said, that the Government could grant the grace measure to the political leaders of the parties that “today, guarantee the stability of the Government”. The reason is Article 102 of the Constitution, which prohibits the Government from granting its members a measure of grace in an accusation of treason or for any crime against the security of the State. The thesis that the Prosecutor’s Office supported and is now endorsed by the Supreme Court is that if the Executive favors those who in some way are its partners, it would be granting a kind of “self-indult”, prohibited by the Magna Carta.
The report sent to the Ministry of Justice, which must now make a proposal to the Council of Ministers, insists that there is no justification to favor those who claim to be “political prisoners”, when in reality “they have been the authors of a mobilization aimed at subverting the constitutional order unilaterally”.
No regret
The SC says that it is not justified to pardon those who claim to be “political prisoners”
The Supreme puts the focus on the words of the leader of Òmnium Cultural, Jordi Cuixart, that he would do it again. To the magistrates it seems the best expression that the pardon is an “unacceptable solution”. In its opinion, if they are released and the disqualification penalty is also withdrawn, they will have a free pass to re-enter the institutions and try again to declare the independence of Catalonia.
The court takes the opportunity to warn about how little the decisions of the Catalan penitentiary administration has helped, granting permits and grade changes in a “group way” to all convicts, without making individualizations, which is contrary to all legal requirements. It reminds the Ministry of Justice that the penalties set for sedition are proportionate and this has been confirmed by the Constitutional Court.
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