ERC sees its dialogue strategy accredited with the suppression of the crime of sedition

Silence is gold.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
10 November 2022 Thursday 13:31
4 Reads
ERC sees its dialogue strategy accredited with the suppression of the crime of sedition

Silence is gold. The Govern and Esquerra have been very cautious and have been very careful when it comes to pronouncing on any progress and concreteness in the path of dejudicialization. The crime of sedition has, apparently, the days numbered. The maxim has been discretion. Sometimes they have even left, especially when there has been more speculation about it. Today they can already brag about their strategy and respond to the open-handed slaps from the rest of the independence movement, who have reproached them until today for the poor results of the dialogue table. If nothing goes wrong, the repeal of the crime of sedition, despite being in exchange for an aggravated crime of public disorder, which will be processed this Friday morning, is the cornerstone of progress in "anti-repressive matters." And who knows if it is only the first of the stones.

Neither the pardons nor the reduction of the bails of the Court of Accounts to thirty former senior officials of the Generalitat have been publicly recognized as the result of the negotiation with Moncloa. Now, with the probable elimination of the ERC sedition, he has an argument to make. It is not a small thing, both in a judicial and political sense, since it can be reinforced.

The doors of the general budgets are opened wide for the Government. But that this crime falls is not enough for ERC. Nor for the number of charges and defendants for other crimes, such as embezzlement. The latter affects Carles Puigdemont, but also the Republicans Josep Maria Jové and Lluís Salvadó, considered architects of the 2017 referendum. Only a reform in this crime would alleviate their procedural situation. Likewise, there is a multitude of demonstrators accused of public disorder. It will be necessary to see if there is any solution.

Esquerra will look for something else, but now the satisfaction is evident. And more so when from their ranks they recognize that they have felt alone, with Junts and the CUP denying the dialogue table and betting directly on the confrontation with the State. Or the ANC making statements and demonstrations –such as the Onze de Setembre– that Pere Aragonès and his team have interpreted as contrary to ERC. “The elimination of the crime of sedition is an essential step in the dejudicialization”, the president has reacted. We value very positively the suppression of the crime of sedition”, Esquerra communicated last night. The party took chest. He recalled that it would not have been possible without the dialogue table.

Even so, they impose prudence on themselves. From hand to mouth the soup is lost. But the Republicans are now one step away from seeing how Pedro Sánchez's commitments materialize. If the proposal goes ahead, the main political crime will disappear, which the independence movement has made an effort to point out that it has no comparison with other crimes in Europe. But the most important and key derivative is that with its elimination, the republican formation understands that the setback of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to Spain can be órdago when it pronounces on the judicial procedure that condemned by the 1- Or the independence leaders.

ERC has chipped away at the European level, seeking international support, as Oriol Junqueras recognized this Sunday in La Vanguardia.

There have been pronouncements from the working group on arbitrary detentions of the UN, Amnesty International or the Council of Europe denouncing the situation of the prisoners and the situation of pro-independence defendants. The probable abolition of sedition in the Penal Code is partly the result of this aid.

The first meeting of the dialogue table was in February 2020, with Quim Torra as president of the Generalitat. The next one was slow in coming, September 2021 (pandemic through). The last one was just over three months ago, in July. In this, along with advances in the protection of Catalan, it was agreed to deal with dejudicialization. However, these public appearances are staged and at most some fringes are closed. The pacts are cooked in the kitchen.