The president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, has maintained that the situation of his predecessor Carles Puigdemont is not worsening at all after the repeal of the crime of sedition and its replacement by the crime of aggravated public disorder, the reform of the Penal Code that ERC has agreed with the Government and that will now face a new key phase, that of processing in the Cortes. Precisely in this phase, Esquerra also wants to face the crime of embezzlement to return to the Penal Code prior to the reform made by the PP in 2015 after the experience of the 9-N consultation organized by Artur Mas in 2014.
In an interview with RAC1, Aragonès recalled that then President Artur Mas and former ministers Francesc Homs, Joana Ortega and Irene Rigau were not convicted of embezzlement of public funds because what they did was not a crime. After that experience - Aragonès has maintained - the PP introduced a corporate crime such as unfair administration within the crimes against the public administration, assuming it as a type of embezzlement, which opened the door to convictions for embezzlement in medial competition with the sedition that affect a good part of the ministers convicted by the procés and that would affect Puigdemont himself if he were extradited. "We have to reverse this situation," the president has maintained so that "what was not a crime then is not now."
One possibility, that of the delivery to Spain of the current MEP to Spain, which the president does not see favored by the substitution of sedition for a crime of aggravated public disorder as the Government and the PSOE maintain since last Friday to the extent that this crime has more room in the legal systems of the countries of the European environment. "This crime already existed in the Penal Code," argued the president, for whom if the judges had wanted to extradite him for public disorder or embezzlement, they would have already been able to do so.
"No one worsens their position, no one will be worse off than they were before the reform", insisted the president of the Generalitat, who, however, has recognized that "it is not in Esquerra's hands" to guarantee that Puigdemont will not be extradited , something that, in his opinion, depends more on the instances of European justice. "We work within the framework of action in which we can have an impact," said Aragonès, who has opted to "reduce the arbitrary margin of action of judges" from the legislature.
In any case, Aragonès has rejected that the reform has been tailored to Marta Rovira, who was aware of the negotiation as secretary general of the ERC and has acknowledged that Puigdemont was not spoken to. "It is not about specific names, we have not negotiated on behalf of anyone", defended the president, who has admitted that the State has many instruments to persecute those who organized 1-O, for which he has called to continue the negotiation process.
The president of the Generalitat has also positively assessed that the maximum penalty for the crime of aggravated public disorder is lowered from six to five years in prison and has argued that the new articles, which replace the "threat of violence" with "intimidation", reduces the scope of crime and penalties.
