First trial suspended for acts related to the amnesty law process, although it has not yet entered into force. The criminal court 2 of Girona has decided to suspend a trial that was supposed to be held on December 12 and 13 and postpone it until a year from now and thus give enough time for the legislative situation of the law to be clarified of amnesty This is stated in a document to which La Vanguardia has had access.
The suspended trial was directed against four activists who were accused of public disorder for having blocked the AVE tracks in Girona on October 1, 2018, the first anniversary of the referendum. The judge has accepted the request raised by the defense of the defendants, to which the State Attorney’s Office added, and postpones the trial until November 11 and 12, 2024. The judge argues that “although the amnesty law is not in force at the moment, it is in parliamentary processing and in the current wording it includes, within its scope, the facts that are the subject of the present case; so that, should the approval prosper, it would have rendered useless the holding of a trial with such a high material and personal cost.
The defense of the four accused, represented by the lawyer Benet Salellas, had requested the suspension taking into account that the amnesty law is already in the parliamentary process and that they were facing the holding of a “long” trial for some facts ” that they could later be amnestied”, such as acts of public disorder, attacks on agents in authority and those materially connected to the protests related to the secession of Catalonia”.
The State Attorney’s Office also requested the suspension of the procedure “due to the possibility that the approval of this law implies the termination of the criminal liability of the defendants” and “taking into account the personal and material costs of all the interveners”, with reference to the witnesses and policemen who were summoned to testify and based on the principle of “procedural economy”.
On the other hand, the Prosecutor’s Office opposed the suspension because it understands that the amnesty law “is not a law that is currently in force and is applicable, since it has neither been approved nor sanctioned, which is why there is no a long way before its effective entry into force”. And he adds that “it is not known at the moment what the specific scope of application of this law will be in the event that it is approved, in order to determine whether the facts and crimes against the defendants can effectively be understood as inclusive”.
