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Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena has written in recent days two decrees which, as well as being read, should be, above all, saved. The first referred to the application for the release from custody of Joaquim Forn drafted by his lawyer and denied last Friday; the second was in response to an application with the same aim for current president of Junts per Catalunya's parliamentary group, Jordi Sànchez, also turned down by Llarena. People who are far more qualified than me, people from the world of law, have already commented on the first ruling, critically and with a common thread: the strong ideological contents of the order. Sànchez's order is along similar lines; we'll come to that later.

Reading both texts one can have the feeling that they're working on a legal framework to serve as a basis for a future, maybe not so distant, outlawing of pro-independence parties if they don't fulfil in their statutes certain specific requirements, different to the current ones. In short, requirements that they fence off and clearly delimit theoretical support for independence, ideological support, from practical support, meaning bringing it about via a political party. This isn't unconnected to the narrative which with persistent force is being permanently established from the Spanish capital, based on the identification of the independence movement with a coup d'état and the existence of a confrontation between democracy and secession. And which is supported by a firm agreement between PP, PSOE and Ciudadanos to ever strengthen these two ideas as the driving force to lead the independence movement to being outlawed.

The order refusing Joaquim Forn release set down that "he maintains his pro-independence ideology", which underlies the possibility of him reoffending, and that there doesn't exist any certainty that his intention of achieving Catalan independence has disappeared. In the case of Jordi Sànchez, he says the same. That he maintains his pro-independence ideology, that it can't be counted out that he would reoffend. It also adds the fact that he joined a candidacy whose proclaimed objective was to reestablish the political dynamic which lead to the "actions from which arose the liabilities which this criminal process is considering". Actions centred around the 1st October referendum and the proclamation of independence and which resulted in the approval of article 155.

Reading both orders released just days apart and paying attention to the formal severity and, above all, the background of what it says and how, one can come to think three things: the release from prison of the 'Jordis', of Oriol Junqueras and of Joaquim Forn is not on the horizon; the outlawing of pro-independence parties is more probable than not and, thirdly, the hypothesis of more people being imprisoned is a possibility that currently should not be discounted.