The Constitutional Court has rejected two applications for amparo filed by the former president of the National Assembly Catalan (ANC), Jordi Sànchez, against pre-trial detention during the investigation of the cause of the procés, and against the denial of permission to attend the Parliament of Catalonia, and to defend their candidacy for the presidency of the Generalitat. In both cases there were two dissents, the judges Juan Antonio Xiol and Fernando Valdés Dal-Ré, who believe that with such decisions it is injuring fundamental rights of the appellant.
The second of these resources is the one that raised an issue of special relevance, as it was not to discuss only the relevance of the long imprisonment preventive, but also the possible violation of the rights of political representation, Jordi Sànchez, in so much that it was the leader proposed to submit to the debate of investiture. The own Constitutional Court had held in earlier decisions that did not fit our non-face-to-face, so that the authorization to go to the Catalan Chamber was essential.
therefore, when the Supreme Court denied Sanchez permission to attend the Parliament, and defend his candidacy, in fact, we closed the step to access the office, in a time when not weighed heavily upon him conviction, although yes, an accusation of rebellion, as formulated by the Prosecutor’s office. Sànchez, in any case, I was a prisoner in preventive, which enjoyed, therefore, the right to the presumption of innocence. For this reason, and for the relevance of the rights of political representation, is what produced the above-mentioned two individual votes. In the ruling on the pretrial detention of Oriol Junqueras there was another vote of this nature, the magistrate María Luisa Balaguer, absent this Wednesday of the plenary by a disorder of mild.
The criterion of a majority of the Constitutional, in any case, it was that they were not the granting of amparo on the grounds that it already had the Supreme court to prolong the detention of Jordi Sànchez and by which he to deny him the permission he had asked to defend your investiture in the Parliament. In essence, the majority of the Constitutional effects a weighting of rights that skews the balance in favor of ensuring the purposes of the criminal process of the procés then in progress.
in Front of the political rights of Sanchez lifted then two risks that both the investigating judge of the Supreme, Paul Llarena, as the Appeals Chamber of the high court, had very in account to deny both the output in the freedom of the former president of the ANC as to prevent him from going to the Catalan Chamber. Such risks were of absconding and repetition of crime. The criterion in the majority in the constitution has been, in sum, that the decisions of the Supreme, in the two negative to the requests of Jordi Sànchez, treated to reasons of proportionality. That is to say, that nothing was made that was disproportionate to the accusations made against the accused and with regard to the possible harm that their departure in the freedom –with the added bonus of his attendance at the debate of investiture, nuance of special relevance to possible appeals to the european court– they would have been for the continuation of criminal proceedings of the procés.
If it is reasonable to think that the denial of the permission for Sanchez to go to the Parliament you can have a tour before the european court is by the sensitivity that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has been shown to possible violations of political rights. The defense of Sanchez used before the Supreme court the recent judgment of the Strasbourg Court on the case of kurdish leader Sela Hattin Demirtas, a matter in which was condemned the Turkish State for his long imprisonment. The Supreme, in any case, he rejected comparisons in their resolutions, arguing that in the case of the procés not pursued ideology, as evidenced by the fact that Catalonia is still governed by independence forces.
Denied the amparo to Forcadell
The constitution has also rejected the amparo requested by the former chairperson of the Parliament Carme Forcadell against pre-trial detention, in this case unanimously. Forcadell argued that the cause of the procés should take it to the Supreme Court. The Constitutional, however, estimated that no violations of his right to the judge predetermined by law or the right to a process with all the guarantees.
