The shit in Spain falls mainly in the fan

[celedhring]

This hasn't been news in a while, but we're going through the last gyrations of the 2017 mess - namely international court rulings.

Today the ECHR had to give out an important ruling about whether the Spain's judiciary violated the separatist leaders political rights during the time they were remanded - and it has backed Spain's judiciary completely. I expected it to generally dismiss the complaints, but not fully (particulary the bit about not letting them travel to parliament and stand for the Catalan presidency).

Given the amount of lawyers in this site, I thought it might be interesting to share. It's barely registered around here, fortunately this seems to have happened a hundred years ago.

https://en.ara.cat/politics/what-will-strasbourg-decide-today-regarding-the-causes-of-the-trial_1_5552675.html

This is from a pro-Indy newspaper (hence some biased language, but they are not the worst) and they use automated translation to republish in English - I've tried to fix some of the most egregious language mistakes but don't expect great English.

Strasbourg's setback for Junqueras, Turull and Sánchez: it says that Spain did not violate their rights with preventive detention
The ECHR considers that the deprivation of liberty did not violate his right to liberty or to free elections
Unverified translation[/b]
Núria Orriols

3 min
So far, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has been overturning all appeals of the independence movement that has found in its docket. This Thursday was no exception: Strasbourg concluded that Spain did not violate the political rights of Oriol Junqueras, Jordi Sánchez, and Jordi Turull when it prevented them from exercising their rights as parliamentarians during their pretrial detention, when they were elected to the 2017 Parliament. The Court did not find a violation of their right to free elections or their right to liberty, and therefore upheld the limitation of rights that occurred as a result of their deprivation of liberty.

In its opinion, the Supreme Court sufficiently justified the deprivation of liberty to "preserve constitutional order," recalling that they were all able to participate in the Catalan elections and that, despite not being able to exercise their rights in person, they were able to take office and subsequently elected a president, Quim Torra.

"The Court does not detect any element of illegality or arbitrariness in the factual and legal grounds for pretrial detention," the ruling states, thus responding to the political prisoners' claim against the Supreme Court, which they said had the intention of "silencing their political project."

This is one of the cases that remained pending at the ECHR, although it is not yet the main case related to the Supreme Court's ruling on October 1st for sedition and misuse of public funds. What was the court supposed to decide today? These were appeals related to the veto on political participation. Specifically, Oriol Junqueras brought before the ECHR the fact that he was not allowed to take his seat in the Catalan Parliament as a member of parliament in the elections of December 21, 2017; Jordi Sànchez, the inability to participate in the electoral campaign, the inability to take his seat in the Catalan Parliament, and the inability stand as candidate in an investiture debate; and Jordi Turull, the inability to stand as candidate  in a second investiture debate. These limitations on political rights, according to Strasbourg, were carefully considered and justified based on the political context. "To guarantee the stability and effectiveness of a democratic regime, the State may be obliged to adopt specific measures to protect itself," the ruling states, and, alluding to the years of the Catalan independence process, it says: "These were particularly unique and serious circumstances."

In fact, Strasbourg is harsh when referring to the events of 2017, applying the same doctrine on the prohibition of political parties, which it considers should be able to be banned in certain circumstances. It cites, on this point, a previous ruling stating that a "State must be able to reasonably prevent the implementation of a political project, incompatible with the norms of the Convention, before it is put into practice through concrete acts that could compromise the civil peace and democratic regime of the country." It adds that the applicants "could not reasonably expect to participate in the elections without any restrictions" and reaffirms, as the Spanish Supreme Court did, that the pretrial detention of political prisoners was necessary to avoid both the "risk of flight"—citing that some members of the 2017 government "escaped" the legal proceedings—and the "risk of re-offending."

In this respect, the ECHR also upholds the suspensions of the political prisoners as members of parliament, based on the charges of rebellion, which judge Pablo Llarena dictated in 2018. Although the court admits that the preventive suspension of a member of parliament, without a firm sentence, is a delicate matter, the court says it must be borne in mind that it is an "exceptional" measure, foreseen only for crimes such as rebellion (which the Supreme Court later dismissed, sentencing instead for sedition). "The domestic courts emphasized that the applicant's conduct was part of a pre-established plan drawn up by people holding the highest public offices in Catalan territory, whose objective was to declare the secession of a part of Spanish territory by means contrary to the law," the Strasbourg ruling states.

The Demirtas Case
One of the precedents cited by the three former political prisoners in their appeals against Spain is that of the Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas, whom Turkey imprisoned as a member of parliament and prevented from exercising his rights. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered his release in 2018, a precedent that the Catalan political prisoners later used to request their own freedom in both the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court. All their petitions were denied, and today, after eight years, Strasbourg sided with the Spanish courts.

It argues that the European Convention on Human Rights "does not prohibit the application of a measure depriving a member of parliament or a candidate in parliamentary elections." The rights of a member of parliament are key in a democracy.

The biggest ruling that remains is the 2017 leaders' appeal to the ECHR against their sedition sentences. That is the only one that got a split vote in the Spanish Constitutional Court before going to the ECHR.