Once again, the inviolability of parliament will be asserted in court. The former members of the 2016-2017 Bureau of the Catalan Parliament, Anna Simó (ERC), Lluís Corominas, Ramona Barrufet and Lluís Guinó (all three from Junts) are to be tried by the High Court of Catalonia (TSJC) from this Tuesday, and until Thursday, for a crime of disobedience to the Constitutional Court for having allowed the voting of resolutions and the laws to govern Catalonia's hypothetical disconnection from Spain in 2017. All four were tried and found guilty by the TSJC, in 2020, being sentenced to 20 month bans on public office holding. Two years later, in November 2022, the Supreme Court admitted Simó's cassation appeal, in which she asserted that two of the TSJC judges lacked impartiality when assessing a final appeal, but then formed part of the court that convicted them, and therefore the highest Spanish court ordered a retrial. The new court that will judge the former members of the Bureau are: judge Fernando Lacaba, who will be president and spokesperson, Maria Jesús Manzano and Francesc Segura.
Specifically, the Supreme Court refers to the president of the TSJC, Jesús María Barrientos as well as judge Carlos Ramos, who, in the appeal dated March 17th, 2017, accepted the accusation put by the prosecutors, in the opinion of the higher Spanish court. The Supreme Court ruling details that the defence lawyers did not question what Parliament approved in the autumn of 2017 or the findings of the Constitutional Court, but rather, what they questioned was that their clients' parliamentary inviolability had been breached, which in the opinion of the appeal judges "should be debated in court"; the TSJC court, however, had already dismissed this matter in the appeal, as well as the issue of whether the Constitutional Court's order was clear and specific enough. Those, then, are the two key points that the defence teams will argue again. The trial will begin on Tuesday with the questioning of the accused; on Wednesday it will be the turn of the witnesses, and on Thursday, the final reports of the prosecuting and defence lawyers.
Support from Junts, ERC and the ANC
None of the ex-members of Parliament are now actively engaged in politics. All four will receive the support of the ERC and Junts party groups, as well as the ANC leadership, who will accompany them to the entrance of Barcelona's Palace of Justice. For the Junts delegation, general secretary Jordi Turull will attend to the media. As for ERC, the former speaker of Parliament, Carme Forcadell - herself head of the 2017 Bureau whose members are now undergoing the retrial, and who was sentenced by the Supreme Court to 11 years and six months' jail for sedition for the decisions made by the Bureau, being behind bars for more than three years - will also be present at the rally, as well as ERC spokesperson, Marta Vilalta.
Intervention of the chambers
Specifically, the TSJC sentenced the four members of the 2017 Bureau to a 20 month ban from holding office and fined them 30,000 euros each for the crime of disobedience of the Constitutional Court, which had ordered them not to act or take any action to promote the Catalan independence referendum. Bureau members, in their role as the procedural body that determines the agenda of Parliament, allowed the chamber to process the 2017 laws of Catalan disconnection from Spain.
The retrial of the four members of the parliamentary Bureau comes at a critical moment for the inviolability of the legislative chamber. The Constitutional Court acted to halt the processing by Spain's Congress of Deputies of a law reform which was to reform the constitutional body itself, and it was thus not passed by MPs. A measure that indicated the judicial willingness to intervene in the other branches of government, and was heavily criticizes by some sectors in Spain - but also one that Catalonia has been suffering for years.