Spain's Constitutional Court, which appears to be, together with the Supreme Court, who has ended up deciding about everything which has happened in Catalan politics for some time, seems to have decided to take until March to give its verdict on the Spanish government's appeal on Carles Puigdemont's nomination as candidate to the presidency of Catalonia and the corresponding parliamentary debate. On the other hand, Justice minister, Rafael Catalá, has just predicted that judge Pablo Llarena of the Supreme Court, who is instructing in the case into the 1st October independence referendum and the later declaration of independence, will ban the whole pro-independence senior leadership from public office once the instruction phase is over, something else anticipated for March, and clearly before the trial which is initially expected for the autumn. Catalá's statements should be taken into account because, by chance, he seems to be regularly on the money when it comes to predicting the development of legal procedures which affect the Catalan independence movement, despite them falling outside of his ministry's jurisdiction.
It's clear, therefore, that whilst here people are debating how to implement the majority with 70 pro-independence seats in the Parliament, the political and legal machinery of Madrid is working overtime and, if the Catalan chamber gets distracted in the slightest, all the members of the government fired by Mariano Rajoy and article 155, as well as the other deputies involved in the case, like Jordi Sànchez and Marta Rovira, will be banned from public office, whilst the pro-independence parties dedicate themselves to a contemplative life. The Law of Criminal Procedure, in article 384 bis, raises this possibility, even before trial in cases affecting people related to or members of armed groups, individual terrorists or rebels. They would apply this last assumption and done. That the crime of rebellion might later be rejected by the court at the end of a trial is, for the moment, a minor issue, because the aim is for them to be moved out of the way now. It's similarly of minor importance that the widespread opinion in legal circles is that the crime of rebellion is indefensible, a position defended by the person who drafted the corresponding article when in the Spanish Congress, PSOE deputy Diego López Garrido.
Given all this, it's worth asking whether it makes sense for the Parliament's speaker, Roger Torrent, to maintain the suspension of the investiture debate when all the cards have been dealt. There's a perfectly well-known Constitutional Court ruling and a Spanish government appeal before the Supreme Court and no one can be under any illusions as to its final result. From Estremera prison, Oriol Junqueras, has argued for Puigdemont's investiture as president and suggested having a legitimate presidency, albeit symbolic, and an executive one. He also said that he doesn't seem himself as the executive president, a necessary step for being a candidate to the second role.
It now has to be asked that the guerrilla war between Puigdemont's Junts per Catalunya and Junqueras's Esquerra Republicana gives way for the common good of unity. If not unity of the parties, unity of the people who voted for them, who want an agreement as soon as possible.