This Tuesday, the opinion of the Spanish lower house's justice committee on the Catalan amnesty law will be presented to the plenary of the Congress of Deputies. And this will happen amidst an ominous rumbling from the judges who are trying, through different courts, to evade the objective sought by the legislature: to leave without effect the judicial cases opened against the Catalan independence movement, relating to the sovereignty process started at the end of 2011. As is the norm in the Spanish legislature, which is unable to get anything underway with a minimum of normalcy, the Socialists (PSOE) and Together for Catalonia (Junts) are engulfed in a battle that is not minor. The Socialists do not want to further amend the text and remove the references to terrorism accusations, and Carles Puigdemont's party is threatening to return the text to the justice committee because it is not satisfied with the current wording.
After a Monday of crossed-over conversations, in which, on behalf of Junts, Carles Puigdemont, Jordi Turull, Míriam Nogueras and Gonzalo Boye took part, and, on behalf of the PSOE, the justice minister, Félix Bolaños, ex-PM José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and the organizational secretary, Santos Cerdán, no one was able to find the philosopher's stone that would satisfy both parties. There was, throughout the day, a certain conviction that the most likely thing was that this time the agreement between the PSOE and Junts would be derailed, since there are too many voices in the pro-independence party who think that they cannot be the ones who give in at the last minute, as happened, also in Congress, with the decree laws which were passed just a few weeks ago.
It is clear that the judicial siege of the amnesty has done serious damage. The politicization of justice, the most stark persecution, has been put on display for all to see over the last few weeks, in the hands of the National Audience judge Manuel García-Castellón, who this Monday extended the investigation of the Democratic Tsunami case for another six months. All this, after having the investigation dormant in his court while supposedly examining events that happened in 2019. It had to be in the middle of the amnesty debate when he reactivated it, last November, introducing the crime of terrorism for Carles Puigdemont and the general secretary of ERC, Marta Rovira. The 25 pages of his resolution extending the investigation this Monday seek to demonstrate that there are well-founded and serious indications that criminal acts were committed that could be classified as terrorism. The fictional account given by the judge is far from having any resemblance to the events that took place and, above all, to the accusations that are made, but we are already too used to reality going down very different paths to that written in a judicial ruling.
It is clear that the judicial siege of the amnesty has done serious damage; the politicization of justice, the most stark persecution, has been put on display for all to see
As if that wasn't enough, this Monday the judge of Barcelona investigative court No 1, Joaquín Aguirre, also jumped on board, as he extended one of the parts of the Volhov case that links president Puigdemont with a Russian plot aimed at obtaining the independence of Catalonia in 2017. The Russian plotters who, according to the newspaper El Mundo published this Monday, let it slip to Puigdemont's circle - and I quote verbatim - that they were intending to invade Ukraine. Goodness gracious, all this with the man they contemptuously call "fugitive" and "coup plotter" as they mercilessly present him as an outcast in Europe. According to Aguirre, he knew about the Russian invasion before anyone else. It is clear that none of this is true and that, moreover, it lacks plausibility for anyone who paid any attention to the events of October 2017 in Catalonia.
But, certainly, a few Russians always inject a much-needed air of espionage when added to any fictional story. Just remember that famous 1966 movie called The Russians Are Coming, focused on a Soviet submarine captain who wanted to visit the United States. He brings his vessel to the surface near a small and placid island off the coast of Maine and, although nothing happens, he almost triggers an armed conflict in the middle of the Cold War. In conclusion, when matters reach this point, who knows if the future of more than one Spanish judge will be writing movie scripts.