While the former Minister of Education and MEP, Clara Ponsatí, returns to Brussels after appearing before a judge last night for the cause of 1-O, the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) judges this Wednesday from 10 a.m. his former colleague in the Government, the current Minister of Foreign Affairs and former Minister of Agriculture, Meritxell Serret, in relation to the same events.
At the gates of the court, Serret, covered by a large part of the independence movement -the ANC did not send anyone-, has taken the opportunity to respond without mentioning it to Ponsatí, who yesterday accused her of “going around the world with Spanish flags bigger than the Catalan” and was critical of the Government of Pere Aragonès, which she described as a “tool of the Spanish occupation”. In this regard, the Minister of Foreign Affairs has called for dialogue and negotiation to resolve the conflict between Catalonia and Spain.
A demand that he has shared with President Aragonès, who has highlighted the “commitment, perseverance and perseverance” of Minister Serret in his defense so that Catalonia can decide its future, for which he has taken the opportunity to reiterate his request to the Spanish State to recognize the right to decide their future of the Catalan citizens. Regarding the return and detention of Ponsatí, the president has refused to “confront those who have been retaliated against”, although he has emphasized that this return has taken place under more favorable conditions than a few months ago due to the agreement with the central government regarding the reform of the Penal Code.
The president of Esquerra, Oriol Junqueras, has abounded in the same speech celebrating “the return of all exiles and the freedom of the prisoners” for which he has also claimed the suppression of the crime of sedition to allow the return of Ponsatí. “She herself recognized that the criminal context had changed,” recalled Junqueras, who has insisted on continuing to work to allow the conditions that make the referendum possible and has called for unity around that objective. “We ask that the whole of the independence movement start to fight for the referendum”, claimed the president of ERC after pointing out that part of the repressive apparatus of the State “cannot resist attacking democracy” and has reiterated that calling a referendum “does not It is a crime, it is a fundamental and essential democratic exercise”.
In turn, the general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, has shown himself to be conciliatory with both Ponsatí and Esquerra and has stressed that “today is not a day for reproach” and that “the strategies are all legitimate.” “All our efforts will be to pile up, not to spread, we will always be there to generate complicity, respect all the strategies,” said Turull, who wanted to make it clear that “today we come to support Serret” while ensuring that with the minister Ponsatí “there is much more that unites us than what separates us”.
At the height of the Arc de Triomf, Serret, who arrived minutes after 9:00 a.m., was received by the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, most of the Government -Carles Campuzano was not present-, the president of Left, Oriol Junqueras, ex-councillor Dolors Bassa, ex-councillor Raül Romeva, ex-president of Parliament Carme Forcadell, vice-president of Parliament, Alba Vergés, and Barcelona councilor Ernest Maragall.
Together they went to the headquarters of the TSJC where large delegations from ERC, Junts and the CUP surrounded the minister. Among these personalities are the president of Junts, Laura Borràs, and its general secretary, Jordi Turull, its spokesman, Josep Rius, as well as the former councilor Josep Rull or the deputy Francesc de Dalmases. On behalf of the CUP, deputies Carles Riera and Eulàlia Reguant have supported the minister. The president of Òmnium, Xavier Antich, has also appeared.
Junqueras, Aragonès, Bassa, Forcadell, Romeva and Vergés will accompany Serret in his statement before the court.
The Prosecutor’s Office asks the head of Acció Exterior for one year of disqualification and a fine of 12,000 euros for serious disobedience for, among other acts, having approved the budget in March 2017 that provided for items for the referendum and also having signed the decree calling for the referendum despite receiving warnings from the Constitutional Court. Serret initially fled in Belgium, but appeared in March 2021 before magistrate Pablo Llarena of the Supreme Court, who referred the case to the TSJC.
In her indictment, the prosecutor asserts that at least since November 2015 the Government and the Parliament of Catalonia and the pro-independence entities began the pro-sovereignty process with differentiated functions and the common objective of achieving the independence of Catalonia.
Regarding the specific role of Serret, the prosecutor recalls that Serret was Minister of Agriculture from the end of January 2016 until Article 155 of the Constitution was applied at the end of October 2017. Thus, she participated in the meetings of the Consell Executiu in which approved the Generalitat’s budget for 2017. According to the public prosecutor’s office, some items were foreseen for the independence referendum and the Constitutional Court suspended its validity and notified all the ministers so that they did not make any related expenses of these suspended games. In addition, “this warning was formulated in identical terms on several occasions due to the suspension and declaration of unconstitutionality of different laws, decrees and parliamentary resolutions.”
The letter also recalls that Serret was present at the official announcement, at the beginning of the summer of 2017, of the date and the question of the referendum. Similarly, the prosecutor recalls that some ministers and senior government officials, such as Jordi Jané, Neus Munté, Meritxell Ruiz, Jordi Baiget and Albert Batlle, were replaced that same summer due to their reluctance to referendum not authorized by the State.
Finally, Serret, like the rest of the members of the Junts pel Sí Government headed by Carles Puigdemont, signed the decree calling the referendum on September 6, 2017 “with full knowledge of the illegality of the initiative”. The TC notified Serret and the rest of the Government of the suspension of the referendum law and that of legal transience. For all these reasons, the Prosecutor’s Office accuses Serret of serious disobedience.
The trial, which also has the State Attorney as a private prosecution and Vox as a popular prosecution, is expected to last only one day and without the testimony of any witness.
The magistrates of the trial will be Fernando Lacaba, Francisco Segura and Marta Pesqueira, after Jesús María Barrientos and Carlos Ramos proposed to the same court their abstention after the Supreme Court annulled the trial against the Parliament table chaired by Carme Forcadell for lack of impartiality of these two magistrates. Both argue, on this occasion, that their participation in the admission of the prosecution’s complaint against the Government in September 2017, of which Serret was a part as Minister of Agriculture, may be a cause of bias.
