I must admit I've had a particularly grumpy couple of days due to the news that the Spanish State Public Prosecuter (Fiscal del Estado) Eduardo Torres-Dulce is insisting on bringing charges of disobedience and perversion of justice among others against Catalan President Artur Mas and Vice President Joana Ortega as well as possibly against Minister of Education Irene Rigau and Minister of the Interior Ramon Espadaler. All the charges arise from the Catalan participative vote that was held on Sunday 9th November so let's review what happened.
Legal Action Against 9n
The Catalans have been wanting to hold some kind of referendum on independence ever since the massive demonstration in Barcelona on September 11th 2012 and have tried to get agreement from central government by every means possible. Last May permission to hold a referendum was refused by Spanish Congress with all major parties, including PSOE, voting against giving Catalans the right to express their opinion democratically.
In September, the Catalan Parliament passed a Law of Non-Referendary Consultations and President Mas signed a decree calling a non-binding consultation on Catalan independence for November 9th or 9N, as it became known. The consultation, which may I remind you wasn't even a referendum but a non-binding way of collecting the Catalan people's opinion, was almost immediately prohibited by Spain's Constutional Court.
Apart from there being something extremely perverse about not allowing people to vote, central government's use of the Spanish judiciary as a weapon in what is essentially a political disagreement has been extremely cynical. Furthermore, politicising the legal system is an extremely dangerous road to go down. In a modern democracy, Politics and the The Law (both in capital letters) should be kept completely separate.
The Sacred Spanish Constitution
The Spanish government's argument at all times has been that a referendum on Catalan independence is both illegal and unconstitutional because the Spanish nation is 'indissoluble' and sovereignty resides in all the Spanish people. However, Spain has had 12 different constitutions over the last 200 years so they're not exactly written in stone.
The current constitution was rushed through in 1978 shortly after the death of Franco, when Spain was still under the threat of a military coup, by a group of politicians that included a number of Franco's ex-ministers, Manuel Fraga and Rodolfo Martín Villa being two of the most obnoxious members.
Similarly, the current constitution was modified in 1992 and then again in 2011 so when Spanish politicians want to make changes, they are happy to do so. The problem with the Catalan question is that there is no political will from central government to resolve it so they use the law and the constitution out of sheer laziness.
9N Goes Ahead
Anyway, once the consultation had been blocked by the constitutional court, the Catalans were bound to find a way round it and announced that they would be holding a 'participative process' on November 9th. It wouldn't be called by decree so it would be even less official than the consultation. The official census wouldn't be used to avoid coming into conflict with data protection laws and voting wouldn't be at normal polling stations but on Generalitat-owned properties so there would be no last-minute hitches. Furthermore, all people manning the polling stations would be volunteers because any civil servants involved in official capacity had been threatened with suspension from work by central government.
Basically, what was being organised was a big voting festival that had no more validity than signing a petition. Central government's initial reaction was to make fun of the event saying that it included no democratic guarantees. This was perfectly true but the symbolic meaning of 9N was completely obvious.
Soon there were over 40,000 volunteers willing to man the polling stations and the Generalitat invented a system whereby voters registered using their identity card guaranteeing that nobody could vote more than once. This meant the voting results would be pretty reliable and actually counting the number of people who voted in favour of independence is a lot more powerful than estimating the number of people on a demonstration.
A Confused Spanish Government
The Spanish government started to get rattled and typically turned to the legal system to do their dirty work for them. About 5 days before the 'New 9N', the Constitutional Court had a difficult ruling to make. How could they ban something that hadn't been officially called, had no validity and was being organised by volunteers? They couldn't stop the event taking place so they ruled that the Generalitat should take no further part in the organisation of the vote.
Central government continued with its mixed messages. On the evening before the 9N vote, Spanish President Mariano Rajoy made a speech saying that he had promised that a consultation wouldn't take place and the following day's vote wasn't a real consultation so he had kept his word. Effectively what he was saying was that they had tried to illegalise something that wasn't happening.
The 9N vote was an extraordinary success. The day was happy, festive and peaceful and the vote was extremely well-organised. This was confirmed by a group of international observers led by British MEP Ian Duncan, who celebrated the Catalans' desire for democracy.
Over 2.3 million Catalans voted, which made up around 40% of the census, and of these about 1.9 million voted in favour of independence. Given the difficult circumstances, although not yet a majority, the turnout and vote in favour show that a significant number of Catalans want to be allowed to express their opinion and many of those want to break away from Spain.
A Break With Spain
However, even more significant was the fact that more than 2.3 million Catalans had deliberately disobeyed the Constitutional Court ruling. In fact, many people had got to the polling stations early just in case the police came later to withdraw the ballot boxes. What had happened was a massive act of civil disobedience. Normally law-abiding Catalans had ignored the wishes of the Spanish government and would have stood up against the police. The divide between Catalonia and Spain had just widened and for most of the people who voted on 9N Catalonia is no longer part of Spain.
During the day, Catalan President admitted full legal responsibility for the event, which was in effect another way of sticking two fingers up at Mariano Rajoy's government and their constitutional court lackeys. However, given the success of the day, this should have been no surprise to anyone. By accepting responsibility, he was staking his claim to continue leading a political process that looks increasingly like it's going to end in independence for Catalonia. He is a politician after all.
Time To Talk
All the posturing over, with a very clear message from the Catalan people, it would have made sense for the Spanish government to start to talk. The message from the international press was that the Catalans should be allowed a legal vote and when you stop and think about it, this is the only way to avoid what might turn out to be an unpleasant confrontation.
Furthermore, a proper debate on the pros and cons needs to take place and who knows, in much the same way as the Better Together campaign did in Scotland, Spain might be able to convince the Catalans that they still have a future within the Spanish state.
Legal Action Against Artur Mas
However, almost immediately Mariano Rajoy was back up to his old tricks. It wasn't the Constitutional Court this time but rather the Fiscalia General del Estado - the State Public Prosecutor's Office - who were asked to take legal action against Artur Mas and other Catalan ministers accused of disobedience and perversion of justice. The State Public Prosecutor duly drew up the charges and sent them to the Fiscalia del Tribunal Superior de Catalunya, who would be responsible for the prosecution before the Tribunal Superior de Catalunya or the Catalan Supreme Court.
Last week the Catalan Public Prosecutors met and after more than a day's deliberations reached the decision, by 6 to 3, that the accusations against Artur Mas and the other ministers wouldn't stand up in court. Let's face it, disobedience and perversion of justice for organising something which the government claims didn't take place and if it did was run by volunteers are pretty flimsy charges.
Unfortunately, the government insisted and ordered the State Public Prosecutor Eduardo Torres-Dulce to pressurise his Catalan homologue José Romero de Tejada, who put the charges before the Catalan Public Prosecutors again. This time they voted unanimously against and it looks like all hell's going to break loose because the government insists that the law acts on its behalf.
Can't they just let it drop? It seems not.
As former Vanguardia editor José Antich wrote in Ara yesterday "It's an old tradition. They always take the wrong route. We have to get used to it. There's a normal intelligent way to go, and they always unequivocally take the wrong one."
I think he's right. Every time one of these confrontations between Catalonia and Spain looms, I can't help but expect them to behave like normal human beings. When they react like raving totalitarians I feel hurt and upset because it's actually not any good for anyone. The best thing to do would be to sit down and talk.
However, after a bit of a rant and a rave yesterday, I've finally come to realise that it's just another stage in the separation process. 2.3 million Catalans now no longer feel Spanish and it looks as if the Catalan legal system is about to unhook from Spain as well.
It's quite possible that Torres-Dulce will force the Catalan Public Prosecutors to take legal action against Artur Mas but if he does the results for Spain will only be worse. The Catalan Prosecutors have to build the case against Artur Mas and then they have to argue it before the judges of the Catalan Supreme Court. They've already said that they don't think there's a decent case against the Catalan President so they're going to have their work cut out to be convincing.
Furthermore, due to the qualification system known as opposiciones, many of the Catalan Public Prosectors tend to be Spanish-speaking and have often been sent to Catalonia from other parts of Spain. However, judges tend to be Catalan because they've worked their way up through the legal system here in Catalonia. To make matters worse for the government, a lot of them tend to be in favour of independence for Catalonia so if the Catalan Public Prosecutors try to bring charges against Artur Mas, the case is going to have to be watertight otherwise it won't be accepted.
It seems to me that Spanish government, as José Antich suggests, is taking the worst decision it possibly can. I was unhappy about this yesterday but now I'm looking on the bright side. Independence for Catalonia has just got one step closer.
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