• Condemns The Supreme Court keeps Junqueras disabled until 2031 for embezzlement

  • Politics Esquerra Republicana accuses the Supreme Court of giving "a blow to democracy"

The Supreme Court warns: a new secession attempt that was not accompanied by violence would go unpunished for the reform of the Penal Code carried out by the Government of Pedro Sánchez.

This is how the Criminal Chamber exposes it in the car where it reviews the sentences of the leaders of the

process

.

"The creation of a normative framework of territorial rupture that would prepare the secession of a part of the territory of the State, even accompanied by massive acts that led to the general disobservance of the laws and the non-compliance with the governmental or jurisdictional decisions that tried to put an end to it, would be unrelated to the intervention of criminal law", stresses the High Court.

The magistrates explain that as a result of the reform approved by the Socialist Executive, between the crime of rebellion regulated in article 472 of the Criminal Code and the new crime of public disorder provided for in article 557 "there is an intermediate space that can accommodate in the future conduct seriously infringing on the constitutional system, in which the observance of the laws and the failure to comply with judicial decisions, if they were not accompanied by a violence preordained for these purposes or did not imply acts of violence or intimidation against people or things would remain constitutional disloyalty and contempt for the bases of coexistence, even when followed by a public and tumultuous uprising, not necessarily violent, would not be subject to criminal treatment."

This is how the court chaired by magistrate Manuel Marchena reproaches the repeal of the crime of sedition for which those who in the autumn of 2017 unilaterally declared the independence of Catalonia were convicted.

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The Chamber, unanimously, explains that the crime of sedition that has been repealed was called upon to protect public order in a dimension that goes beyond the scope of the new article 557 of the Penal Code (the crime of aggravated public disorder).

"We speak -reiterating the words of our sentence- of the '... interest of society in the acceptance of the constitutional framework, of the laws and of the decisions of the legitimate authorities, as a prerequisite for the exercise and enjoyment of fundamental rights' , which has now remained outside the walls of the narrow classification provided by the new article 557 of the Penal Code as a crime against public order", the judges explain.

In an order, notified this Monday, the Criminal Chamber where it has established how the aforementioned legal modification affects the leaders of 1-O, who were pardoned by the Council of Ministers to prison sentences but not to those of disqualification for public charge.

The High Court concludes that it must sentence the accused former members of the Generalitat Oriol Junqueras, Raül Romeva, Jordi Turull and Dolors Bassa as perpetrators of a crime of disobedience in real competition with a crime of aggravated embezzlement of public funds.

The court refuses to reduce the sentence for the crime of embezzlement that the four had imposed, which will be extinguished, according to the liquidation of the sentence already practiced in the respective executions, in the year 2031 in the case of Junqueras and Bassa, and in the year 2030 in that of Turull and Romeva.

Likewise, Jordi Sánchez and Jordi Cuixart are sentenced as perpetrators of a crime of public disorder and the former president of Parliament, Carmen Forcadell, and the former ministers Josep Rull and Joaquín Forn as perpetrators of a crime of disobedience.

These last three defendants are the most benefited from the legal reform since it has led to the total extinction of their respective disqualification sentences.

The Chamber rejects in its order that the repealed crime of sedition can now be understood to be punished in the new crime of aggravated public disorder and warns that the reform leaves secessionist processes unpunished that are not accompanied by acts of violence or intimidation.

The magistrates estimate the criteria of the Prosecutor's Office regarding embezzlement but differ on the application of the new criminal type of public disorder.

The Supreme Court does agree to condemn 'the Jordis' for public disorder because the defendants did practice specific acts of violence or intimidation on people and things as the Supreme Court recalls: "The analysis of the account of proven facts shows without any difficulty the role played by both in the events that took place around the Vice Presidency and Ministry of Economy and Finance on September 20. The disturbance of public peace and the existence of intimidating acts as a consequence of the concentration of 40.

aggravated embezzlement

Regarding the embezzlement of funds, the magistrates emphasize that "the facts declared proven in our sentence can never receive the privileged treatment represented by the application of article 433 of the renewed Penal Code", that is, the criminal type introduced into the legislation by Moncloa to favor the leaders of 1-O.

The court responds categorically: "Apply the public funds of the Generalitat to finance a popular consultation that went beyond the competence framework of those who promoted it, developed after repeated requirements of the Constitutional Court and the Superior Court of Justice to avoid it and, In short, oriented towards a secessionist process that did not achieve virtuality, it can never be considered

"...a different public application"

from the one to which those funds were budgetarily assigned. And, what is more evident, it can never be understood that they were it was an action that was not for profit", contrary to what was defended by the State Attorney's Office.

"It would be contrary to the most elementary legal logic to understand that whoever makes public funds their own incurs a penalty that can reach 8 years in prison and whoever uses them for criminal or unlawful activity -in our case, the holding of a referendum judicially prohibited - can be punished with a fine", sentenced the Supreme Court.

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  • Generalitat of Catalonia

  • Pedro Sanchez

  • supreme court

  • Josep Rull

  • Civil Guard

  • constitutional Court

  • Manuel Marchena

  • Minister council

  • Justice