The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has requested additional information from the parties, including the State attorney’s office, on the lawsuits filed by the JxCat Secretary General, Jordi Turull, and his predecessor, Jordi SÃ nchez, on violations of human rights before admitting them for processing.
The decision, adopted on the 4th and published this Tuesday, is a procedure prior to a possible ruling on these complaints, sources from the ECtHR told EFE, who pointed out that, although the request for this information usually leads to an admission to procedure does not presuppose it.
The State attorney has until September 1 to answer the questions sent by the Court and, from that moment, it will be the plaintiffs’ lawyers who will be able to present their allegations.
With this information, the Strasbourg judges will determine whether the complaints filed by various judicial decisions adopted by Spanish courts against Turull, SÃ nchez and also against the president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, for their participation in the 2017 independence process can be admitted for processing. .
The three plaintiffs, who have also filed appeals before Strasbourg for their convictions for sedition and embezzlement, consider that the Spanish courts did not protect their rights by preventing them from participating in the December 2017 regional campaign.
Junqueras and Turull also consider that the courts denied them the protection to attend the inaugural plenary session of that legislature and, in the case of the second, to attend his own inauguration as president in March 2018. SÃ nchez also denounces the suspension of his parliamentary status. The three also sue Spain for the partiality of some of the Constitutional magistrates who handed down the sentences that prevented them from exercising their political rights.
Turull was placed in preventive detention on March 23, 2018, one day after he did not obtain the absolute majority necessary to be sworn in as President of the Generalitat in the first vote and one day before the second vote was held, which he could not assist. On May 14, Quim Torra was sworn in in the second vote with a simple majority.
In the brief on Turull, the ECtHR questions whether his return to prison after being released on bail was “supposedly arbitrary” and whether he had “an effective process” at his disposal to be able to face preventive detention. Strasbourg questions the State on whether the “restriction” to attend the investiture as president of the Generalitat violated the European Convention on Human Rights and also on the “lack of impartiality” of the magistrates of the Constitutional Court on the appeal of Turull.
In the case of SÃ nchez, Strasbourg also asks the State about the “limitation” to participate in the December 2017 election campaign, to attend Parliament “regularly” and to the investiture. It also questions the “lack of impartiality” of the magistrates of the Constitutional Court.
The ECHR has also given the State until September 1 to respond to the questions raised in the case of Junqueras about the complaint that he was not allowed to attend the constitutive session of Parliament in December 2017.
