SPAIN AGAINST THE CATALONIA NATION ------ Spain's Constitutional Court rejects Catalan Parliament's Declaration of Sovereignty - VilaWeb

Spain's Constitutional Court rejects Catalan Parliament's Declaration of Sovereignty - VilaWeb

Spain's Constitutional Court rejects Catalan Parliament's Declaration of Sovereignty

It considers the definition of the people of
Catalonia as a 'sovereign political and legal subject' illegal · The
declaration was approved in the Catalan Parliament on January 23, 2013

The Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) has unanimously rejected the
declaration of sovereignty passed by the Catalan Parliament on January
23, 2013. The court partially accepted the appeal brought by the Spanish
Government. It considers the first point to be "null and
inconstitutional": "Sovereignty. The Catalan people have, by reason of
democratic legitimacy, political and legal sovereignty. According to the
judges, the text violates Articles 1.2 and 2 of the Spanish
Constitution and Articles 1 and 2.4 of the Statute of Autonomy of
Catalonia. But it does not find the reference to Catalonia's right to
decide within a legal framework unconstitutional. The Spanish Government
presented an appeal of unconstitutionality to the court because it
considers the declaration, beyond its political value, to have legal
standing.

Pro-sovereign parties reject the Constitutional Court ruling

CiU, ERC, ICV-EUiA, and the CUP all coincided in not recognizing the
ruling of the Constitutional Court which rejected the Catalan
Parliament's Declaration of Sovereignty, approved on January 23, 2013.
CiU said it didn't give any credence to the Court's resolutions while
ERC encouraged people to respond to the ruling on November 9th—the date
of Catalonia's referendum on independence. ICV-EUiA reaffirmed the
objective of exercising the right to decide, while the CUP encouraged
all political forces to "exercise that which the declaration claims".

Unionists take advantage of the ruling to demand that the referendum be sidelined

The unionist parties in the Catalan Parliament took advantage of the
Constitutional Court ruling against the Declaration of Sovereignty to
demand that the government abort the process of self-determination. PSC,
PP, and C's coincided in pointing out that they each had warned that
the declaration would meet this fate. PSC's parliamentary spokesperson,
Maurici Lucena, believes that the ruling is "an opportunity for starting
over" and called on President Mas to "make an effort" to do so. These
things happen, according to Lucena, due to recognizing that the
referendum "is desirable" but that it can only be carried out "through
the path of agreement between governments, no matter how hard it is, and
not matter how long it takes. Any shortcut leads to problems," he said.
Lucena believes that, in any case, the Constitutional Court
ruling—which the Socialists now call "the most obvious outcome"—is "not
good news for the Parliament".

Òmnium accuses the Court of attacking the Parliament's democratic legitimacy
Òmnium
Cultural considers the decision of the Constitutional Court against the
Parliament of Catalonia's Declaration of Sovereignty out of line and
defends that Catalonia is a sovereign political and legal subject. It
thereby calls on citizens to "take advantage of the democratic right to
decide the political future of the people of Catalonia with the ballot
boxes on next November 9th".

For Òmnium, the court ruling "is an attack on the democratic
legitimacy of the Parliament" and "demonstrates that the court cannot be
an arbiter of the process". In this sense, it gives support to the
initiative in the Parliament to demand that the president of the
Constitutional Court, Francisco Pérez de los Cobos, and judges Pedro
González-Trevijano and Enrique López recuse themselves "for their lack
of impartiality".

Spanish Court says right to decide is constitutional if it doesn't mean self-determination

On the other hand, the Court declared that the references to the
"right to decide of the citizens of Catalonia" are constitutional
because they can be interpreted in conformance with the constitution
since, according to the ruling, they don't consecrate a right of
self-determination not recognized in the constitution, but rather a
political desire that can only be achieved through a process that is
adjusted to the constitutional legality with respect to the principles
of "democratic legitimacy", "pluralism" and "legality".

Pressure from the Spanish Government
The Spanish
Government had put a lot of pressure these last few months in order to
get a ruling against the declaration. The Vice President of the Spanish
Government, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría said that the declaration had to
be annulled because in addition to having "legal standing", it had "very
clear effects on the consequent declarations with respect to the title
of sovereignty, which corresponds to the whole of the Spanish people".

It is the first time in the history of the democracy of the Spanish
State that a declaration of a parliament has been suspended. In fact,
the Constitutional Court had already preliminarily suspended a
declaration of the Catalan Parliament in May of last year, when the
Spanish Government brought an appeal.

Now it will have to be seen what consequences can be derived from the
definitive suspension of the declaration, since the other decisions
that come out of it could also be suspended, like for example the
creation of the National Transition Advisory Council.

The appeal from the Attorney General put emphasis on the fact that
the Catalan people could not be a "sovereign political and legal
subject", and that, in any case, the sovereignty for deciding on a
hypothetical secession belonged to the whole of the Spanish people.
According to the Attorney General's brief, the declaration of
sovereignty approved by the Catalan Parliament is an "open challenge to
the constitution" with "political and legal ramifications". For the
Attorney General, that the Catalan people be defined as a "sovereign
political and legal subject" is "no more and no less than an act of
constituent power" which gives the Catalan people the right of
secession.

On this page, you can find many translations of the text approved by the Parliament of Catalonia.

Constitutional Court