The judge of the National Court Manuel García-Castellón has become the main headache for the PSOE, Junts and ERC in the negotiation of the Amnesty law for the defendants in the process with his interlocutors, “at sensitive political moments” – like they were described last week by vice-president Teresa Ribera -, on the cause of Democratic Tsunami (TD), in which ex-president Carles Puigdemont and the general secretary of ERC, Marta Rovira, among others, are being investigated for terrorism.
Since the amnesty negotiations began as a counterpart to the investiture of Pedro Sánchez, the judge, on the one hand, and the negotiators, on the other, have been playing a kind of cat-and-mouse game with the text of the law.
On October 19, 2019, the judge opened a secret case to investigate the platform that tried to lead the protests against the Supreme Court ruling to the leaders of the process. Until October, four years later, his actions were scarce despite extending the instruction up to five times.
However, shortly before the secrecy of the case was lifted, on May 13, 2023, a Civil Guard report leaked to the press placed Rovira at the top of TD, shortly after another judge, Pablo Llarena, left the prosecution of Rovira in the cause of the process in a crime of disobedience – a charge that does not entail prison, given that the crime of sedition had been removed from the Penal Code.
But Puigdemont still did not appear in the case. At the time, no one foresaw the possibility of an amnesty that would allow him to return to Spain without having to go through prison and be tried. Everything changed with the result of the general election on July 23, which left only one option to avoid a repeat election. That Together, with ERC, support one of the two candidates in exchange for an amnesty. And despite some contact of the post-convergents with the PP, it soon became clear that the only viable candidate would be Sánchez, who, in September, gave the first signs that he was willing to negotiate a criminal oblivion law.
October 25
Personation of Vox
The day after Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz sealed their alliance to form a new coalition government, García-Castellón took a first step to reactivate the cause by accepting the personation of Vox and the association of victims of terrorism Dignidad and Justicia. With this decision, the judge, who did not have the support of the Prosecutor’s Office to accuse those investigated for terrorism, armed himself to defend his competence to maintain the investigation, since if the crime was public disorder the cause would have referred to the Catalan courts.
November 3rd
Report of the Civil Guard
A few days after Sánchez openly defended the amnesty, it was made public that the judge had received from the Civil Guard a report he had requested that identified Rovira as the mastermind of the protests and “political coordinator” of TD. At the same time, he ordered the opening of an oral trial for a crime of terrorism to the twelve members of the defense committees of the republic (CDR) prosecuted in the Judes operation also for terrorism.
November 6th
Puigdemont, investigated
On the same day that an agreement between the PSOE and Junts on amnesty was taken for granted, García Castellón opened a formal investigation against Puigdemont, Rovira and ten other people for a possible crime of terrorism, while he offered the MEP declare voluntarily, to be measured. The information that had appeared in the press about the amnesty indicated that it would include terrorist crimes as long as they did not result in injuries or deaths. In his interlocutory order, the judge included hundreds of people injured in the protests and even one death – a French tourist who suffered a heart attack – during the occupation of El Prat airport, a mobilization promoted by TD.
November 13th
Excluding terrorism without a final sentence
With three days to go before Sánchez’s investiture, the PSOE alone presented the Amnesty law proposal, whose negotiations were about to be derailed by the tensions between Junts and ERC. The text excluded from criminal oblivion the crimes of terrorism, as long as there had been a final sentence, a scenario far removed from the current procedural moment of the Tsunami and CDR cases. Malicious (intentional) acts against people that had resulted in death, abortion or serious injury were also excluded.
November 22nd
Elevation to the Supreme Court
Already with Sánchez re-elected and the new Government formed, the judge raised the issue of Puigdemont to the Supreme Court so that the investigation could be undertaken from there even before the National Court resolved the Prosecutor’s appeal for the case to be transferred in the courts of Barcelona and the Junts leader was dismissed from the case, a request that the court did not grant.
January 23
Shielding terrorism
For fear that including terrorism crimes in the amnesty as long as there is no final judgment could endanger the law before the Constitutional Court or European justice, the PSOE and the pro-independence groups in Congress agreed on an amendment that eliminated the reference and left out of the norm acts of terrorism that, “manifestly and with direct intent, cause serious violations of human rights, especially those provided for in article 2 and 3 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and of Fundamental Freedoms, and in international humanitarian law”.
January 25
The judge avoids the amendment
The magistrate, in an interlocutory hearing in which he confirmed the identity of two police officers injured in the protests, tried to avoid the amendment agreed two days earlier by linking the injuries to the action of Democratic Tsunami, in his opinion, “incompatible with the right to life and physical integrity recognized in article 15 of the Spanish Constitution and article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights”. In addition, he did not rule out “homicidal intent”, which would fit with another exclusion from the rule: that there is a will to cause death.
January 30 (tomorrow)
living amendment
The bill will be debated and voted on in full Congress to pass to the Senate. Together and ERC fear that the actions of García-Castellón could damage the amnesty for Puigdemont and Rovira and that is why both parties keep alive some amendments that seek to remove all exclusion from terrorism. More tomorrow.
