It is not comparable in form, but what happened during the process may have given rise to the interference of the Constitutional Court in the General Courts. This is pointed out by Antoni Bayona, who was senior lawyer of the Catalan Chamber until 2018. The Court began to put parliamentary activity under control in those years, when, in his opinion, its scope of action should not interfere in it but rather pronounce about the content of what is approved.
Basically and according to the legal sources consulted, the main similarity between what happened in the process and now lies in this invasion of the legislative power.
Looking back, Bayona recalls that what the TC began to stop in Catalonia were resolutions –for example, the resolution of the Parliament to call an independence referendum– with no legal value. It was a preventive action.
In this context, it should be remembered that the controversial plenary sessions of September 6 and 7, where the referendum law and the legal transitoriness law were voted on, were carried out using a ruse –the agenda expansion mechanism– to avoid precisely the control of the Constitutional Court that suspended the laws one day after they were approved, not before.
According to the legal sources consulted, the decision of the Constitutional Court to prohibit the vote in the Senate on the amendments to reform the law on the Judiciary and the Constitution itself is one more step on this path because on this occasion the court has ruled in full processing of a law.
There are some differences between the jurists consulted when analyzing the precedent closest to this case. It happened in 2018 where the preventive notice of the Constitutional Court on the telematic investiture of Puigdemont led to the suspension of voting and the search for a new candidate, Joaquim Torra.
Joan Ridao, who was Parliament's senior lawyer between 2018 and 2021, points out that it was the first time that the actions of the Constitutional Court influenced and determined a vote by the legislature, in this case the Catalan one. For its part, Bayona understands that the warning of suspension of said plenary session cannot be considered the same - in comparative terms - since it was not strictly made on a legislative act.
Opening the focus, Ridao considers that since 2014, and with an eye on the process, the Constitutional Court has been maximizing its judicial function, designed at the beginning as a control of the Parliament. And it is in this background thread more than in the forms where the connection between the actions of the High Court during the process and the decision made this Monday to block its own renewal is indicated.
