The race against the clock between the amnesty and the judicial processes had a new sprint yesterday with the decision of the judge of the National Court Manuel García-Castellón to reject the appeal of the Prosecutor’s Office in the Democratic Tsunami case and warn that the accusation of terrorism against former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont and the general secretary of ERC, Marta Rovira, is increasingly “established.”
This issue is key for the independence sector because it is one of the few processes that could be left out of the amnesty. The reason is the crime being pursued: terrorism. The public ministry believes that all the riots encouraged by the Tsunami Democràtic platform in response to the sentence of the process for sedition handed down by the Supreme Court in 2019 are public disorders and therefore should be investigated in any ordinary court in Catalonia.
Precisely in this case, time is important. In the first draft of the Amnesty law, before its registration in the Congress of Deputies, terrorism was excluded as an amnesty crime as long as there were injuries or deaths. This wording saved the case that is also being pursued in the National Court by the Committees for the Defense of the Republic (CDR), who are accused of preparing subversive acts to achieve the independence of Catalonia.
However, in the midst of the negotiation process with the pro-independence parties for the final preparation of the text, García-Castellón dusted off the cause of Democratic Tsunami, which had not made major progress since 2019. The Civil Guard delivered a report, pointing directly to Rovira as one of the promoters of the platform. That document was enough to reactivate the case, go one step further and directly accuse Puigdemont of terrorism.
This resolution meant that in the text presented in Congress by the PSOE, only terrorism crimes linked to the process with a final sentence were excluded from the amnesty. Currently, the Tsunami Democràtic issue is in an embryonic phase, under investigation, so there is plenty of time for the amnesty to be approved.
However, another derivative arises. Once the law is approved, judges and courts will file unconstitutional appeals in the Constitutional Court (TC) and preliminary rulings in the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which paralyze the processes. The case would stay where it is. That would mean that it would not advance until the TC or the CJEU ruled.
Junts and ERC know that time here does count. For now, they are trying to introduce an amendment to the Amnesty law so that terrorism is included, removing the proviso “except in a final ruling” and another in which appeals before other judicial bodies do not have suspensive effects. In the process of partial amendments they have been left out for now, but they still have two other attempts, in the Justice commission and in the plenary session, to force a negotiation with the PSOE.
Meanwhile, García-Castellón has demanded that the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, chaired by Manuel Marchena, investigate Puigdemont as he is granted jurisdiction due to his status as a European parliamentarian. If jurisdiction is admitted, the High Court would be the sole instance, so once the investigation is completed, the processing and the oral trial phase would follow. This sentence would now be final.
The amnesty still has a few months left to be approved because the Senate process still remains, and with the latest reform of its regulations promoted by the PP, which has an absolute majority in the Upper House, the process can be extended for another two months. further.
For the moment, García-Castellón continues carrying out investigations. In this last order, the judge analyzes the reports sent by the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Civil Guard, Aena and proceedings from other courts. For this instructor, the crime of terrorism is justified by the riots at El Prat airport, in which there were twenty officers injured and one deceased. The latter died of natural causes, although García-Castellón believes that they could have been caused by the tension of the airport siege.
This Tsunami action was, according to the order, “planned, deliberate and publicized through social networks.” It caused, the resolution continues, a “direct impact on air traffic and safety” to such an extent that the Mossos had to manage the replacement of air traffic controllers “to avoid catastrophic consequences.”
The judge believes that the terrorism investigation should continue given the “forcefulness, quantity and clarity of the evidence.” For this reason, he rejects the Prosecutor’s Office’s claim that the matter be sent to an ordinary court for an alleged crime of public disorder against those detained in those riots.
For García-Castellón, that was terrorism and behind everything there was a “leader”, Carles Puigdemont, and a “political coordinator”, Marta Rovira. He is still waiting for, on the one hand, the Supreme Court to take a position on the investigation of the Junts leader; and on the other, that the Criminal Chamber of the National Court rule on García-Castellón’s jurisdiction.
