CATALONIA -- Catalan News Agency - Catalan Government keeps November 9’s participatory process on-going despite Constitutional Court’s suspension

Catalan News Agency - Catalan Government keeps November 9’s participatory process on-going despite Constitutional Court’s suspension

Catalan Government keeps November 9’s participatory process on-going despite Constitutional Court’s suspension

CNA

Barcelona (ACN).- On Tuesday, Spain’s Constitutional
Court accepted to take into consideration the Spanish Government’s
appeal against Catalonia’s participatory process about independence,
which has been organised by the Catalan Executive as an alternative to
the original consultation vote that was banned by Spanish authorities
five weeks ago. The Constitutional Court has unanimously accepted the
Spanish Prime Minister’s new appeal. According to the Constitution, this
represents the automatic and temporary suspension of the object
appealed against until a definitive decision is reached (a process that
can take months or even years). However, the Catalan Government replied
that all the participatory process’s preparations are ready and that
Catalans will be able to cast their vote on next Sunday. Furthermore, a
judicial complaint will be filed against the Spanish Government for not
respecting Catalans’ basic rights and freedoms.

The Catalan Minister for the Presidency and Government Spokesperson,
Francesc Homs, emphasised that the Spanish Executive is appealing
against “a hidden referendum” and the continuation of the original
consultation vote, while the new participatory process is a different
thing, he underlined. “They are banning something that we are not
doing”, Homs highlighted. For this reason, he insisted that the
alternative participatory process is still in place although he did not
disclose specific details about how exactly the vote will avoid the
Court’s suspension. Moreover, he also announced allegations against the
Court’s temporary suspension.

In addition, the Catalan President will call an urgent meeting of the
National Alliance for Self-Determination, which brings together more
than 3,000 political, business, social, cultural and sports civil
society organisations as well as Catalonia’s main institutions. The
National Alliance should back Sunday’s participatory process, although
it is not clear already whether it could even replace the Catalan
Government at the last minute as the vote’s organiser in order to bypass
the suspension.

On top of this, Homs also announced that in the next few days the
Catalan Government will file a judicial complaint to the Supreme Court
against the Spanish Government for not respecting Catalans’ basic rights
and freedoms, such as freedom of expression, the right to political
participation and freedom of ideology, among others, by stopping
citizens from giving their opinion on independence in a non-binding
process based on the Catalan Government’s powers over citizen
participation.

As expected, the parties against the self-determination process have
urged the Catalan Government to give up and stop organising the vote,
while those supporting November 9’s participatory process have requested
that it be maintained. The Spanish Government focused its reaction on
the Catalan President, Artur Mas, and asked him to obey the Court’s
suspension.

The Court’s suspension is an automatic mechanism regardless of the final decision

The ordinary plenary of the Constitutional Court, which is meeting
this week from Tuesday to Thursday, has unanimously accepted to take
into consideration the appeal filed by the Government chaired by Mariano
Rajoy. This time, the Court did not force the procedure nor rush to
accept Rajoy’s appeal, as it did on the 29^th of September with the original consultation vote.
By accepting the appeal, the Court has committed itself to analysing
the case and giving a definitive answer on the appeal in the coming
months or years. However, according to Article 161.2 of the Spanish
Constitution, when the Constitutional Court accepts an appeal filed by
the Spanish Government, the object appealed against is automatically
suspended for an initial period of 5 months, regardless of the Court’s
final decision. The Court can always lift the temporary suspension and
it can also decide to extend it after the 5 months have passed.

This is what has happened this Tuesday morning, when the Court’s 12
members voted to accept the Spanish Government’s appeal against the
participatory process scheduled for the 9^th of November.
After debating for two and a half hours, they have unanimously accepted
the 49-page appeal, which considers the alternative process to be “a
hidden referendum” and “an abuse of the legal process”. The Court has
admitted the appeal because “the legal conditions of admissibility are
met”, explicitly mentioning Article 161.2 and the consequent temporary
suspension. In addition, they have underlined that such a suspension
does not anticipate what will be finally decided. Besides, the Court
gives 20 days to the Catalan Government for presenting its allegations.

The Court explicitly suspends preparation actions

According to the Court’s decision, “the actions appealed against” are suspended as from Friday 31^st
of October (the day the Spanish Government filed the appeal) for the
parties involved, being the Catalan Government. For third parties,
meaning town halls, political parties and civil society organisations,
the suspension will only affect the actions taking place after the
publication of the Court’s decision on the Spanish State’s official
journal (BOE), which is likely to take place on Wednesday.

The Court has explicitly suspended the “remaining preparation actions
of this consultation vote” or those “related to it”. This means that it
bans setting ballot boxes, any political propaganda action and the
publication of the Catalan Government’s participation information
website participa2014.cat.

Constitutional Court does not include a warning for Mas, as requested by the Spanish Government

However, the Court has not included a specific warning to the
President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, to obey the suspension,
as had been requested by the Spanish Government. The 12 members were
divided on this issue, but a majority of them have decided not to
include such a warning, taking into account the fact that the Catalan
President already obeyed the suspension of the original consultation
vote. The Spanish Government wanted a reminder that all the public
powers are obliged to honour the law and another one about “the
responsibilities” of not respecting such a ban, which would be paving
the way for a potential criminal prosecution of the Catalan President.

Catalan Government reacts by stating that the participatory process is still in place

After its weekly Cabinet Meeting and an hour after the Court
announced the temporary suspension, the Catalan Minister for the
Presidency, Francesc Homs, gave a press conference in which he announced
that Sunday’s participatory process is still on-going. He also stated
that the Catalan Government’s preparations are all ready for the vote to
take place and he stressed that people running it are all volunteers.
In fact, more than 40,000 people have registered as volunteers in the
last few weeks, including many civil servants. The vote should mainly
take place in high-schools run and owned by the Catalan Government and
in municipal centres in the towns and villages without a high-school.
Homs stressed that this Tuesday ballot boxes and ballots have been all
distributed, and that citizens know where they have to vote.

Journalists asked him in many different ways whether the Catalan
Government would be the one running the vote on Sunday, but Homs always
referred to his initial answers: “The Government keeps the participatory
process on-going” and “everything is ready for the vote to take place”.

Catalan Government is “acting within the legal framework”

Furthermore, Homs insisted that next Sunday’s participatory process
is a different thing that the original consultation vote, suspended by
the Constitutional Court. In fact, the Minister highlighted that the
Catalan Government respected such a suspension and cancelled the
preparations for the original vote and launched a non-binding
alternative process to respect the Court’s suspension but to guarantee
the freedom of expression of the Catalan people by gathering their
opinion. Homs emphasised that the Catalan Government has not been
 working on the original vote for many weeks, although the Spanish
Executive is arguing that the alternative process is the same thing as
the original consultation vote. Homs stressed that the new vote is not
“a hidden referendum”, as Rajoy is arguing. Therefore, he pointed out
that the Constitutional Court “cannot ban what we are not doing”, since
the Catalan Government is not working on the original consultation vote
any longer neither on a hidden referendum.

The Catalan Minister emphasised that the Catalan Government is always
“acting within the legal framework” and that they are totally convinced
they will be doing so regarding next Sunday’s vote. Journalists asked
him if he could guarantee that civil servants have nothing to fear if
they run polling stations on Sunday, and Homs answered that they are
doing so in their capacity of volunteers, not as civil servants, and
therefore they have nothing to fear.

A judicial complaint against the Spanish Government and a meeting of the National Alliance for Self-Determination

Moreover, announcing that the participation process is on-going and
that allegations will be filed against the Constitutional Court’s
decision, Homs also made two other main announcements. Firstly, the
National Alliance for Self-Determination will meet before Sunday. As was
announced last Friday, the Catalan President will make use of his right
to call an urgent meeting of this large-scale body representing a wide
part of Catalonia’s civil society and institutions. There have been
speculations on whether the National Alliance, which groups more than
3,000 organisations, could replace the Catalan Government as the
organiser of the participatory process if the Court were to suspend it.
Homs did not explicitly reject this possibility but he did not confirm
it either, insisting only that the vote will take place. It is expected
that the National Alliance, which brings together all the chambers of
commerce, many employer’s associations, the main trade unions, the main
NGOs, many cultural and social associations, sport organisations such as
the FC Barcelona, political organisations and parties, as well
Catalonia’s main institutions, will back Sunday’s vote.

Secondly, the Catalan Executive will file a judicial complaint to
Spain’s Supreme Court against the Spanish Government. Homs accused the
Spanish Government of “abuse of power and abuse of the legal process” by
taking the participatory process to the Constitutional Court and filing
an appeal against it, looking for the automatic suspension that does
not allow the Catalan Government to give its version before the
suspension comes into force. Furthermore, Rajoy is using the
Constitutional Court to solve a problem that is strictly political. On
top of this, the Spanish Government is not respecting the Catalan
Executive’s powers on citizen participation and is preventing Catalans
from expressing their opinion. Therefore, the judicial complaint will
accuse the Spanish Government of not respecting basic rights and
freedoms, such as the right to political participation, freedom of
ideology and freedom of expression.

Parties against self-determination are asking Mas to give up

The parties against the self-determination process have welcomed the
Constitutional Court’s suspension. The People’s Party (PP), which runs
the Spanish Government but only has 14% of the Catalan Parliament’s
seats, has asked the Catalan President, Artur Mas, “not to disobey” the
Constitutional Court and “stop all the preparations for November 9.
Furthermore, the PP stated that neither the Catalan Government nor civil
society organisation will be allowed “to use the ballot boxes, the
ballots and the venues” on November 9. The populist and anti-Catalan
nationalism party Ciutadans (C’s) stated that the Court’s decision was
“to be expected” and they asked Mas “to assume the failure”. He also
asked Mas to “call early elections” in order to allow Catalan citizens
to judge on “his misgovernment”.

The Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), which opposes the current
self-determination process although it ran in the last elections
promising a legal self-determination vote, asked the Catalan President
“to stop the preparations for November 9”. However, the PSC also added
that if the participatory process were in the end run by civil society
organisations, they “do not have any problem with it”.

Parties supporting self-determination ask to keep going

As was also expected, the parties in favour of November 9’s
participation process, asked the Catalan Government to keep working on
it. The governing centre-right pro-Catalan State coalition CiU
emphasised that the Catalan Government is respecting the legal framework
and that Spanish institutions cannot ban freedom of expression. The
left-wing Catalan independence party ERC stated that the Constitutional
Court and the Spanish Government want “to shut down ballot boxes” but
they added that “they will never be able to put Catalan people in a
cage”. Furthermore, the “notarized letter” sent by the Constitutional
Court will not stop the self-determination process, the ERC concluded.
The Catalan green socialist and post-communist coalition ICV-EUiA asked
the Catalan Government to guarantee that Catalans will be able to
participate in the process scheduled on November 9. Furthermore, they
stated that the Spanish Government’s appeal is “a great political
mistake”. Finally, the alternative left and radical independence party
CUP backed the Catalan Government’s response to the Constitutional
Court’s suspension. However, they will be vigilant in making sure that
there will be ballot boxes on November 9.

More on

Artur Mas, ballot box, C's, Catalan Government, Catalan Independence, Catalan Parliament, Citizenship, CiU, Civil Society, Constitutional Court, CUP, Democracy, early election, ERC, European Commission, European Union, Francesc Homs, Freedom Of Expression, Human Rights, ICV-EUiA, Independence, Mariano Rajoy, Minority Rights, National Alliance, Participation, PP, PSC, PSOE, Referendum, Self-Determination, Spanish Constitution, Spanish Constitutional Court, Spanish Government, Spanish Nationalism, Spanish Supreme Court, Vote

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The building of Madrid-based Constitutional Court (by R. Pi de Cabanyes)

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