The Constitutional Court yesterday joined the defense of the judges against the accusations launched by Catalan independence for a presumptive wfare to which they would have been subjected for being unfairly prosecuted. The guarantee court unanimously supported magistrate Concepción Espejel after she was pointed out by Junts spokespeople as one of the members of the lawfare and who was accused of carrying out a judicial persecution against Catalan independence.
Espejel was part of the court that acquitted Mossos d’Esquadra Major Josep Lluís Trapero. As a member of the room of the National Court that tried the top official of the regional police for allegedly allowing the referendum of October 1, 2017, Espejel cast a private vote against the acquittal. In fact, the speaker of that resolution was Ramón Sáez, another magistrate who is now part of the TC and who has supported him in this statement. Espejel also presided over the court that acquitted the ex-president of Barcelona Football Club Sandro Rosell, who now says he is a victim of Operation Catalunya.
In yesterday’s session, the governing plenary of the Constitutional Court agreed, unanimously, to record the “support and solidarity” with Espejel, “who has always carried out his jurisdictional function in an impeccable, integral and impartial manner”. In addition, the ten remaining magistrates express concern about the “questioning” that has taken place publicly, in the parliamentary sphere.
This statement joined the one released on Wednesday both by the president of the Supreme Court, Francisco Marín Castán, and that of the General Council of the Judicial Power (CGPJ), Vicente Guilarte, in which they showed the rejection of the interventions of both the spokesperson for Congress, Miriam Nogueras, as in the Senate, pointing directly at judges, on whom they stated that they should be judged.
In fact, the president of the Supreme Court canceled for “supernatural” reasons a meeting he had planned with the Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, which was rescheduled for December 19 after the latter informed the magistrate by phone that he defends judicial independence and the tasks of the judicial career.
At the same time, the conservative bloc of the CGPJ asked its president to include in the agenda of the next plenary session the examination of the relations between the judiciary and the remaining powers of the State. They demand that the body of judges show a “clear and resounding position” that puts an end to the “harassment and failure of the rule of law”.
The conservatives once again put on the table “the continuous flow of inadmissible statements, disqualifications, complaints, complaints and even threats that judges suffer for the simple exercise of their constitutional functions”, they say.
