The drastic reduction of the sentences to the principal convicted of the process does not have a simple execution. Apart from the difficulty of modifying crimes as complex as those of sedition and / or rebellion, the Supreme Court also condemned for embezzlement of public funds. This crime can be a difficult obstacle to overcome for the Government's intentions to rehabilitate Oriol Junqueras and the other three former consellers who were imposed.

According to judicial and fiscal sources, a decrease in sedition penalties thinking about the process must take into account what is currently the provision for the illegal use of public funds. The 2015 Penal Code reform hardened a crime that applies mainly to corruption cases. When the misappropriated figure exceeds 250,000 euros, as according to the proven facts happened loosely in the process , the sentences are shot: a minimum of six years in prison and a maximum of 12.

In the Supreme Judgment the embezzlement had little impact on the penalties, since it was considered only as a means to commit the most serious crime, sedition. But if the new wording of the sedition supposed substantial drops and fell below the embezzlement, this crime would become the main one.

The new calculations should take into account that the embezzlement would have been committed along with another crime (sedition). Under the rules of the Criminal Code, that would imply imposing the penalties of embezzlement in its upper half: between the ages of nine and 12. Legal sources specify that, given the criminal scale that was applied in the sentence to the sedition, its equivalent in embezzlement for Junqueras would be nine years and seven months in prison.

With those convicted in the hands of Catalan prison services, the prison is easy to avoid. However, embezzlement also carries disqualification sentences. And harder than expected for sedition: a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 30 years. Taking into account that another crime concurs, the minimum would rise to 15 years.

The sources consulted consider that undertaking the general reform of sedition and rebellion to apply it to a specific case is a serious error. For that the pardon is planned, they point out. But they add that the option to also reduce the penalties of embezzlement would have even more disastrous consequences of criminal policy, since it would benefit most of those convicted or pending trial for corruption.

The obstacle of the sedition for the reduction of sentences would affect the four convicted for that crime: former President Junqueras and former advisers from whose departments agreed expenses for 1-O: Raül Romeva, Dolors Bassa and Jordi Turull.

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  • Supreme Court
  • Dolors Bassa
  • Jordi Turull
  • Oriol Junqueras
  • Raül Romeva
  • Corruption
  • Proced judgment

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