The Constitutional Court yesterday joined the defense of the judges against the accusations made by the Catalan independence movement for an alleged ‘lawfare’ to which they would have been subjected in order to be unjustly prosecuted. The court of guarantees unanimously supported Judge Concepción Espejel this Thursday after Junts spokesmen accused her of being a member of the ‘lawfare’ and who was accused of carrying out judicial persecution against the Catalan independence movement. .
Espejel was part of the court that acquitted the largest of the Mossos d’Esquadra, Josep Lluis Trapero. As a member of the National Court Chamber that tried the head of the regional police for allegedly allowing the referendum of October 1, 2017, Espejel cast a dissenting vote against the sentence by which he acquitted him. In fact, the speaker of that resolution was Ramón Sáez, another magistrate who now makes up the TC and who has given him his support in this statement. Espejel also presided over the court that acquitted the former president of the Barcelona Football Club (FCB) Sandro Rosell, who now claims to be a victim of Operation Catalunya.
In today’s session of the Government Plenary Session of the Constitutional Court, it was unanimously agreed to record in the minutes the “support and solidarity” with Espejel, “which has always carried out its jurisdictional function in an impeccable, complete and impartial manner.”
Furthermore, the remaining ten magistrates have shown their “concern about the questioning that has occurred publicly, in the parliamentary sphere.”
This statement joins the one released yesterday by both the president of the Supreme Court, Francisco Marín Castán, and the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), Vicente Guilarte, where they showed their rejection of the interventions of both the spokesperson in Congress, Miriam Nogueras, like the one from the Senate, directly targeting judges, who they claimed should be judged.
In fact, the president of the TS called off for “unforeseen” reasons a meeting he had planned with the Minister of Justice Félix Bolaños, which was rescheduled for December 19 after he informed the magistrate by telephone that he defends judicial independence and the work of the judicial career.
Today, the conservative bloc of the CGPJ has 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: legality of the Parliamentary investigation commissions and duty to appear of the judges.
“The continuous flow of inadmissible statements, disqualifications, accusations, complaints and even threats that judges and magistrates have been suffering for the mere exercise of their constitutional functions, as well as the creation of various Parliamentary investigation commissions appointed with the undisguised intention of criminalizing judicial work, demand from this CGPJ a clear and resounding position that puts an end to such harassment and bankruptcy of the Rule of Law,” the submitted document highlights.
