The TSJC reduces the disqualification of four members of the Forcadell Board from 20 to 4 months

The Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) has sentenced four members of the Parliament table chaired by Carme Forcadell to four months of disqualification for disobedience after the repetition of the trial of Lluís Corominas, Anna Simó, Ramona Barrufet and Lluís Guinó and has given the sentence as served for “the time suffered from deprivation of the right to attend electoral processes” from the first conviction.

Lluís Corominas, Anna Simó, Ramona Barrufet and Lluís Guinó were sentenced by the same court to 20 months of disqualification in 2020 for disobedience for processing the disconnection laws that gave the supposed legal basis to the 1-O independence referendum, and now they have seen as, in the repetition of the trial, ordered by the Supreme Court for lack of impartiality of two magistrates of the TSJC, the sentence has been reduced by 16 months.

The court also sentenced them to pay a two-month fine, with a daily quota of 20 euros, (€1,200) with subsidiary personal liability of one day for every two unsatisfied quotas, when in the first trial they were fined 30,000 euros . It was the maximum penalty that the Prosecutor’s Office requested for them then. The court also orders them to pay costs, one quarter each.

The repetition of the trial was ordered in November by the Criminal Chamber of the TS after considering an appeal by Anna Simó, who alleged that her right to be tried by an impartial judge had been violated. The resolution of the High Court focused on two magistrates: the president of the TSJC, Jesús María Barrientos, and magistrate Carlos Ramos.

The Supreme Court concluded that both had expressed an explicit position on key issues in the case in proceedings prior to the trial, for which reason it forced the oral hearing to be repeated with a different court, which in March was made up of judges Fernando Lacaba, Francesc Segura and María Jesús Apple tree.

In the second trial, the defenses of the defendants argued precisely that their clients had already served “more than” the disqualification sentence imposed on them in 2020. “The effects of the annulment of the previous oral trial have caused serious damage to my clients”, said then Judit Gené, lawyer for Corominas, Barrufet and Guinó.