This article will not be read by any of those good Spaniards who are angry on social networks against the amnesty. They don’t need to read arguments or debates because their argument has long been emotional, not logical. In general, those who only defend their own things are a bad conversation partner. It’s boring. His interest is to defend a result and he does not care how it is achieved. So everything is useless to him. And there are more and more of them. We live in a society of hooligans They know their position in any discussion beforehand, so they lose the joy of discussion.
Because of this, despite myself, I have to start by justifying myself: I am not Catalan, I lack knowledge of that land and, moreover, I do not support the independence of Catalonia. As an Andalusian, I believe that united in diversity we can all be stronger. And yet, I am honestly convinced that the Catalan pro-independence leaders are subject to illegal persecution that violates all the limits of the rule of law and brings us closer to authoritarianism.
This is something that I have defended publicly since 2017, so this is not an analysis that addresses the sympathies of any political party that needs one vote or another in Parliament to access power. This, in my view, is simply a consequence of a radical reliance on the rule of law and democracy, beyond individual interest.
Six years ago, in 2017, as a citizen with a certain appreciation of human rights that I am, I did not understand that the Government sent battalions of police to beat citizens who were more involved in an act of peaceful protest, even if I wasn’t. share it.
As a judgment, it seems unreasonable to me that no one other than the Constitutional Court has expressly prohibited Catalan civil organizations from organizing a symbolic act in which anyone who wishes can place a piece of paper in a transparent plastic box. I really understand that this is a challenge to the State and that it has political consequences. But I don’t think the courts are there to ban political challenges. After that war and the sad pictures of young and old people being beaten for carrying a ballot in their hands, I thought that someone from the Government or whoever gave the order to resign . Instead, a judicial persecution was launched against its political leaders who repeatedly violated the rules of law.
The judges of the Supreme Court, who took the matter without the power to do so, used temporary detention as an exemplary punishment, beyond the three cases where the Constitution allows it. Without any legal justification, they even continued to imprison a defendant in the middle of an investiture debate to prevent him from being elected president of the Generalitat. All this seems to me to be a political, and therefore illegitimate, use of the courts.
We have a judicial power that has invaded the powers of the legislature, that refuses to apply the law and that acts with complete disregard for the Constitution.
The group of leaders selected for punishment were then sentenced to disproportionate sentences, often for fabricated crimes. The Supreme Court invented a concept of sedition from the letter of the Penal Code, which has never been used before or since and which allows anyone to organize acts of protest that can be classified as rebellion punishable by dozens of years in prison. peaceful civil. Then I do not doubt that the law is not used, but the judges act as vigilantes, regardless of the letter of the law.
In case you have any doubts, after some time, when Parliament changed the crime of embezzlement, where they were also convicted, even without conclusive evidence, the Supreme Court stood by the popular will -on which the Cortes declared and decided. that he would not apply the law, because he understood that it would benefit the same leaders of independence.
Usually separation of powers is the only guarantee of judicial independence, but this is not the case. Democracy is also based on judges submitting to the rule of law and not, without legitimacy, occupying the role of legislator. So with regard to the challenge of Catalan independence we have a judicial power that has invaded the powers of the legislature, that refuses to apply the law and that acts with complete contempt for the Constitution. Since we have not had a Constitutional Court for many years in Spain, but a political court sold to the ruling party, none of that will be resolved.
That is why I am in favor of amnesty. Because this is the only way in which the democratically elected parliament can regain its main equivalent of the democratic State, in the face of judges who usurp its functions. Reposition the law as the highest expression of sovereignty and mechanism of political direction in society.
If the amnesty is limited to the crimes of disobedience, embezzlement and sedition, it does not mean that any criminal will go free.
Furthermore, if the amnesty is limited to the crimes of disobedience, embezzlement and sedition, it does not mean that any criminal will be freed. Because it is difficult to know if they are criminals when the judges invented the crimes they were convicted of. That is why there are no problems of equality compared to other activists convicted in other places, against whom the power of the courts was not abused in this way.
These are my reasons, political, for amnesty.
I understand that the “state” political parties cannot say it like that. The public recognition that, in this matter, the Supreme Court acted outside the law and was guided by its ideas and political beliefs means delegitimizing the summit of one of the powers of the State. I am well aware of the dangers of this delegitimization and I fully understand many colleagues who privately agree with my analysis but would never say it publicly.
Despite the fact that the Supreme Court of Spain is a discretionary appointment body, where judges can access through the unmotivated appointment of a political body such as the General Council of the Judiciary, the whole structure of the system based on the fiction that they are independent and impartial judges who judge according to the law. A fiction that I understand that many responsible judges do not want to question, despite the evidence.
So I agree to elegantly sidestep the issue and resort to some vague paraphrase. Amnesty, thus, serves to bring into the realm of the courts what should always be resolved in the political realm.
Personally, I do not believe that the Catalan independence movement is always right in its goals or in the means it uses. I believe that respect for minorities must guide any political action, and that we have an obligation to find flexible solutions where all people and all territories can be comfortable in a different common space. But it is not necessary to support the independence movement to protect democracy and the rule of law.
I hope that an amnesty law will be approved, that it will be carried out with the scope and justification necessary to avoid a declaration of unconstitutionality and that it will serve to overcome the conflict experienced in Catalonia. In fact, it will also serve to restore power to the democratic parliament, which is no small thing.
This article will not be read by any of those good Spaniards who are angry on social networks against the amnesty. They don’t need to read arguments or debates because their argument has long been emotional, not logical. In general, those who only defend their own things are a bad conversation partner.
