Certainly, there are pictures which are worth more than a thousand words. To see king Felipe VI sitting on the chair which was occupied for several months by the presiding judge of the second chamber of Spain's Supreme Court, Manuel Marchena, during the trial of the Catalan pro-independence leaders, is priceless. It's to return to the 3rd October 2017, the day of the disastrous televised speech which distanced, who knows, perhaps irreversibly, Catalan society from the Spanish monarchy. That fateful evening which put the Spanish monarchy in a position of rupture with the Catalan institutions and which has done it so much harm, to the extent that he is a presence non grata in many places in Catalonia, and the Catalan government, for example, agreed to not attend any of the events organised by the Zarzuela palace. A situation which, for example, as was confirmed again this Monday, has pushed from Girona to Barcelona the events of the Princess of Girona Foundation in the face of the unheard of scenario caused by the boycott from all Girona's authorities and the refusal to cede any public space.
Felipe VI in the Supreme Court, inaugurating the legal year as a prelude to the sentences against the pro-independence leaders which, everything suggests, will be published during the first fortnight of October, merely highlights that image that, politics sidelined from the conflict between Catalonia and Spain, all that's left is the justice system. The calls from the president of the Supreme Court and the General Council of the Judiciary, Carlos Lesmes, and the state's attorney general, María José Segarra, that the sentences should be "respected and complied with" is an attempt to dampen the institutional and public responses expected from Catalonia if they are found guilty. The congratulations from Lesmes to Marchena, as the presiding judge, and the other members of the court, is nothing but an order to close ranks ahead of the announcement of the sentences, which could make a turning point in our convulsive politics.
This situation has as many ramifications as there are conflicts on the table. And it contributes, for example, to blocking Pedro Sánchez's investiture as it allows the acting prime minister and his entourage in the Moncloa government palace to permanently stress that Podemos isn't a political party to be trusted, thanks, among other factors, to its sympathy for a new independence referendum in Catalonia. As much has Pablo Iglesias has talked himself hoarse to offer repeated demonstrations of loyalty on this question, nothing has been sufficient for PSOE. Above all because Sánchez and his number two, Carmen Calvo, far from lowering the tension with the pro-independence world, have dedicated themselves to casting it as a pariah with which you can't even try to reach an agreement.
Judicialising Catalan political life and the resolution of a clash which is exclusively political is one of the greatest mistakes which Spanish politics has made and, in turn, the last two tenants of the Moncloa. There is not, nor will there be, a solution from the justice system to Catalonia's demands. Entrenching oneself in a die-hard opposition of repression towards the independence movement can offer short-term dividends, but is the seed so that, sooner rather than later, the conflict will sprout back up in the same place it was left in before the repression led some to think that everything was back in its place.