The seven Catalan political prisoners who are serving their sentences in Lledoners prison can now enjoy a 3rd Level prison regime - being required only to spend nights at the prison from Monday to Thursday - according to the criteria of the court rulings issued this Wednesday by the prisons surveillance judge number 5 of Catalonia, María Jesús Arnau Sala. They will remain in jail, however, and the leave provisions will not be made effective because the 3rd Level regime and their work leave permissions have been elevated to the Supreme Court by a legal finesse that has once again given voice and vote to the court that sentenced them. Junqueras, Turull, Rull, Romeva, Forn, Cuixart and Sánchez will continue to be unable to enjoy any of the limited leave possibilities allowed under the prison regulations to go to a job or do volunteer work for the simple fact of being political prisoners, although this status is not recognized.
Judge Arnau's rulings are a total repudiation of the arguments put forward by the public prosecutors to deny them 3rd Level status and a challenge to the Supreme Court, which will have to reach a resolution in accordance with the law on the major objections that the prisons court judge's decision has erected. For example, when she says regarding the prosecutors' submission that it contains "manifestly biased, incomplete and, in the present case, even tendentious" positions. Or when she reprimands them for complaining about the number of sessions and schedules planned by the penitentiary technical team for prisoner rehabilitation: "This is unacceptable, when this insistent requirement has never been raised by prosecutors in the case of any inmate this judge is aware of, not even in very serious crimes," of which she cites several. To conclude the reprimand with what, in her opinion, is the objective that can be read into the prosecutors' arguments, "to give an exemplary punishment to those convicted in the said case."
Therefore, the judge has no doubt that the prison administration has decided correctly on the promotion to 3rd Level, open regime status. What will happen now? Well, a very simple thing, the third chamber of the Supreme Court, presided over by judge Manuel Marchena, will have to approve the judge's ruling or, conversely, overturn it and keep them in prison without the right to the privileges set out in the legislation for any of the prisoners. In other words, that the thesis which judge Arnau has rejected, that of an exemplary punishment for the members of the Catalan government and the leaders of the pro-independence organizations, would be given the green light by the high court.
There is little doubt that Marchena will decide for the latter option, in line with all the moves he has made in this case. But nothing comes completely free and he will have to commit himself again after the judgment of the prisons surveillance court. It is not always that the politicized chamber of the Supreme Court comes up against someone who puts it in a compromising position from within the system.