Let's say it plainly and simply: the pardon isn't justice, nor is it an option. I mean, the Catalan political prisoners are in custody are part of a great farce mounted by the Spanish state, they will be sentenced in a trial whose verdict can already be made out despite not meeting the most basic standards for it to be comparable with that which would have happened in any other European country and, once the Supreme Court has had its say, what they've got to do is ask the Spanish government for a pardon? Is that how Spain believes it's going to overcome the embarrassment a trial of this kind represents in many states of the union? Is that how the government believes it can avoid the slap in the face from German and Belgian justice to judge Llarena? Is that how the Spanish executive believes it's going to get out of the predicament it finds itself in before international public opinion?
The most serious thing of all is that, moreover, as soon as the Spanish government showed the slightest glimpse of its hand and put the option of the pardon on the table, it had to start running in the opposite direction. Two of Pedro Sánchez's ministers have discredited the central government's delegate to Catalonia, Teresa Cunillera, who within hours even had to issue an official statement retracting her proposal.
The political, legal and media Spains want long and exemplary sentences, believing that this will vaccinate against future moves by the independence movement. Or do we not have the private messages between judges and the eloquent silence of the great majority showing that? And the print media, which talks about the pro-independence coup d'état day after day and which in Barcelona these days has even crossed the line of justifying the conviction of the Jordis for their actions on 20th September last year which were everything but violent?
The only scenario which can be contemplated should be their release, prosecutors redrafting the charges and dropping the accusations of rebellion and sedition. Similarly, the withdrawal of the accusation of misuse of public funds if it cannot be proven, as it currently can't be. And let them be tried for disobedience alone, the only charge which might possibly have a solid basis. As long as the Spanish institutional architecture doesn't understand this, it cannot suggest bodges like pardons, which is nothing other than accepting, from the beginning, that the trial will return sentences which will not be just.