"Much better": the judge’s comment that could annul the Catalan trial
CATALONIA
' "Much better". Two short words that could be a bombshell. They were
spoken by presiding judge Manuel Marchena in the Supreme Court during
Tuesday’s session of the Catalan independence trial. Marchena made the
comment in response to Benet Salellas, the defence lawyer for Jordi
Cuixart, after a tense exchange between judge and lawyer which Salellas
ended by saying "I won’t ask any further questions." Marchena then
dropped in his two word epithet: "Much better".
The defence
team coordinator for the ERC party, Joan Ignasi Elena, told Barcelona
radio station RAC1 on Wednesday morning that this response is "a very
serious procedural error in the trial" and recalled that "for a similar
phrase, the case against [Basque pro-independence leader] Arnaldo Otegi
was annulled, because it shows that the judge lacks impartiality." In
November 2018, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Spanish
justice hadn’t given Otegi a fair trial, after he had already served
more than six years in prison, because the trial judge had once
responded to a comment from the defendant with the phrase "I knew you
were going to say that."
Lawyer Elena says the way is now open for
the Strasbourg court to annul the verdict in the trial of the 12 Catalan
independence leaders as a result of the reaction of the presiding
judge.
University of
Barcelona law professor Joan Queralt also pointed out this same
procedural error. In a tweet sent on Tuesday, he said that "for
something similar, the European Court of Human Rights rendered void the
sentence against Otegi".'
https://www.elnacional.cat/…/catalan-independence-trial-muc…
_______
