The order of the Supreme Court that reviews the sentences for the events of the ‘procés’ in light of the latest reform of the Penal Code does not respond to some expectations about the effects that it should have on the part of those who promoted it legislatively or of who openly criticized her. The Supreme Court withdraws the missing crime of sedition for which some pro-independence leaders were convicted and now condemns them for disobedience in a royal contest with embezzlement of public funds, but keeps the more serious typing instead of applying the attenuated one provided for in the reform, and rejects the substitution of sedition for the new crime of aggravated public disorder, as advocated by the Government.
This interpretation is about protect the initial statement that is being reviewed one way or another in Europe and does not support the plans of the Government and ERC to reduce inflammation or dejudicialize the situation in Catalonia. Waiting for what the Prosecutor’s Office decides in the indictment of Josep Maria Jové and Lluís Salvadó, if the provisions of the Supreme Court are applied, which is doctrine as long as someone does not take the issue to the Constitutional Court, it is not easy to avoid that they end up in prison, something that did not explicitly want the drivers of change normative. The doctrine of the Supreme Court is also a disavowal of all those, on both sides of the political spectrum, who valued the penal reform as an attempt to save Oriol Junqueras and allow his rapid return to politics institutional. This has not been the case while the equating of sedition to European parameters has once again opened the way for the capture of those on the run through Euro-warrants.
The Supreme Chamber, chaired by Manuel Marchena, continues with its custom, which some consider an overreach, of comment on the activity of the legislature and argues that, with the disappearance of sedition and the introduction of aggravated public disorder, that he considers that cannot be applied to the events of 1-O, there remains a space for “impunity” if similar events occur in the future, without violence or intimidation, since it cannot be classified as rebellion. The events of October 2017, according to the court, were something more than an attack against public peace, and they were punished for sedition because they prevented “by force or outside of legal channels” compliance with the laws or judicial decisions.
However, the court falls into a certain contradiction because he could always be sentenced, as he does in the same act, for aggravated embezzlement -–with jail terms and disqualification– that he assigns to those now convicted, linked to the crime of public disorder if any, and that without counting other legal instruments to prevent secession, such as article 155 of the Constitution.
This interpretation of embezzlement can end with the sending to prison of some of the 21 senior officials (12 from ERC and 9 from Junts) pending trial, therefore, having thwarted the objectives of the penal reform by the Supreme Court’s interpretation, the only way out for the government is the granting of new pardons, which should be conditional on the explicit commitment of do not repeat the unilateral route and to seek coexistence agreements in line with the law of Canadian clarity.