Defence council for Jordi Sànchez (JxCat) has confirmed that at 8am next Monday, 12th March, they will present an application for cautionary measures to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg to ask for their client to be able to attend the presidential investiture debate in the Catalan Parliament. Sànchez himself is the candidate for investiture in the debate, also scheduled for Monday.
According to the defence, headed by lawyer Jordi Pina, they will call on article 39 of the Court's Rules on interim measures.
The defence say that they received the Supreme Court's verdict denying Sànchez permission to attend the debate at 4:35pm today, "once the ECHR was already closed". As such, Monday morning is their first chance to file the application, the office which processes applications being open from Monday to Friday from 8am to 4pm.
Defence sources suggest that the formal notification of the decision being given "so late" is not down to chance and that it makes it more difficult for them to appeal to the European court.
Criminal recidivism
Judge Pablo Llarena based his decision on the risk of Sànchez reoffending and emphasised that the crimes under investigation were based on "clearly illegal" legislative and executive actions, "flagrantly disregarding constitutional, legal and institutional checks set out in our legal system, applying tactics which haven't been excluded and remain supported in the present".
Among other arguments, the judge says that even monitoring Sànchez's behaviour in the Parliament might not be sufficient for special permission to attend to be safe, "even less for someone who -as reflected by the facts described at the start of this resolution- has used his leadership to exceed and overwhelm the force which a democratic state can apply for the law to be observed".