With each decision of the courts, the gap that separates the judiciary from the Government is enlarged. The PSOE would not dare to accuse the judges of interpreting the law of 'only yes is yes' in a twisted way, as United We Can do, but it is not because of this deference that the Socialists get their decisions to be better received by the judicial establishment. The confrontation, always latent, is evidenced in writings such as the one issued today by the Supreme Court on the leaders of the process.
The court presided over by Manuel Marchena has reviewed the sentences of those who saw their jail sentence pardoned in light of the reforms to the Penal Code made by the Government. Since the crime of sedition was abolished, it is replaced by the much milder crime of disobedience. And it does not replace it with aggravated public disorder, as the government intended. Regarding embezzlement, the court opts for the aggravated type and, in this way, prevents those pardoned from seeing their disqualification removed and being elected to public office.
But, what practical consequences are derived from the review of these sentences?
Oriol Junqueras will not be able to stand for election to hold office until 2031. Speculation about the return of the ERC leader to the political front line was the order of the day and included the possibility that he was even a candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat in elections that, in principle, are scheduled for the beginning of 2025. The Supreme Court has just eliminated not only that option, but even that of his return in the following ones, in 2029. Junqueras continues to have a great influence on ERC and Pere Aragonès was the person he opted for as his dolphin. But the daily exercise of power tends to distance little by little the pupils of his mentors from him and, with time and this decision, it is foreseeable that Junqueras's shadow will end up becoming less and less long. On the other hand, Marta Rovira, general secretary of ERC, sees his return from Switzerland closer. She is not claimed for embezzlement, but for rebellion. It would be difficult for her to be convicted of this crime, taking into account that her companions were sentenced for sedition and that now she has been replaced, according to the Supreme Court, for mere disobedience, which does not imply imprisonment. But Rovira still has to go through the courts. If she is convicted of disobedience, she could be disbarred for up to two years. The deadlines are fair to run in the Catalan elections, although he could run in others. In any case, her return to institutional politics is more feasible.
In the Junts per Catalunya sphere, the person who benefits from this court decision is Josep Rull, who was not convicted of embezzlement and who is now seeing how his disqualification as guilty of sedition vanishes. As convicted of disobedience, the disqualification has already been extinguished in excess. In recent months, the name of Rull has emerged as one of the possible candidates for the presidency of the Generalitat for Junts, where there is no shortage of candidates, although none with the complete favor of the various internal currents of the party. Joaquim Forn is in the same situation, so he could occupy a position, for example, in the Barcelona City Council if Xavier Trias were to become mayor.
The court does consider that sedition can be replaced by aggravated public disorder in the case of the two Jordis, Cuixart and Sànchez, who directly participated in the mobilization in front of the Ministry of Economy against the entry of a judicial delegation into the building in 2017 It is one of the undesired effects that Unidas Podemos, among other formations and organizations for the defense of human rights, feared would occur. In his opinion, the reform makes it easier for judges to apply higher sentences to activists participating in certain protests. The truth is that, with this review, the two leaders of pro-independence citizen organizations receive a greater punishment than those who were part of the government.
The original intention of Pedro Sánchez was to lower the penalties for sedition, in theory to equate them to the two other European countries. In the end, he gave in to ERC and eliminated the offense. Also at the request of the Republicans, Sánchez modified the embezzlement, with an eye on the trials that will take place this year against other leaders of the process, some of them from ERC, such as Lluís Salvadó or Josep Maria Jové. These and others are accused of disobedience and embezzlement, that is, they could go to prison for this second crime. The government reform tried to prevent it, lowering some penalties, but to avoid citizen anger, since this crime is identified with corruption, other assumptions were aggravated that in principle were not applicable to this case considering that public money was not stolen for personal gain, but for 1-O. But the Supreme Court has established jurisprudence by opting for the aggravated type of embezzlement, so it may even be that those leaders who have to sit on the bench now receive a greater punishment than before the reform. That has political consequences. If dozens of independentistas go to prison in the coming months, it will be convenient for ERC that Sánchez continue in Moncloa so that, once again, he can resort to pardons.
The Supreme Court reprimands the Government for decriminalizing any attempt to make a territory independent by persistently altering the institutions, even without violence. Despite this, the court has tried to alleviate this "vacuum" by preventing the majority of those convicted from returning to active politics. The message sent by the Supreme Court is clear: the Government leaves the State unprotected and it is the judges who prevent, as far as they can, the seditious from doing it again. Something that, in an election year, does not exactly help socialist aspirations.
