The Supreme Court confirms the disqualification of Quim Torra

The president of the Generalitat, Quim Torra, this Monday, during the telematic presentation of the report of the BioRegion of Catalonia 2020.Enric Fontcuberta / EFE

The Supreme Court has confirmed this Monday the sentence to a year and a half of disqualification imposed on the president of the Generalitat, Quim Torra.

The sentence, passed unanimously, is firm and forces him to leave office, which opens a new institutional crisis in Catalonia.

Torra will continue to formally serve as president until the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia - the body that tried and convicted him in the first instance - executes the sentence and once the

has published his disqualification.

Torra will be stripped of his responsibility for failing to comply with the order to remove a banner in favor of the politicians imprisoned by the

, in which it is the first disqualification of a Catalan president in the exercise of the position.

The Supreme Court considers that the

disobeyed "stubbornly and obstinately" the Central Electoral Board, in charge of ensuring the neutrality of the public powers in the elections.

The judgment of the Supreme Court dismisses Torra's appeal and fully confirms the resolution issued by the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia on December 19, which sentenced him to a year and a half of special disqualification both for the exercise of elective public positions, and whether at local, regional, state or European level, as well as for the performance of government functions, at local, regional and State levels.

In its judgment, of which the magistrate Juan Ramón Berdugo has been a speaker, the court emphasizes that Torra is free to display symbols or banners that reflect his political identity, but not to use them in electoral periods "disobeying the provisions of the Central Electoral Board that, in the exercise of its functions, it guarantees the transparency and objectivity of the electoral processes, prohibited its use ”.

In this sense, the Chamber emphasizes that the agreements of the Central Electoral Board did not violate Torra's rights to ideological freedom and freedom of expression, while the attitude of the

, according to the court, did instead imply a violation of the principle of neutrality to which the administrations in general must submit, "contrary to express orders of that Electoral Board."

After the ruling of the Supreme Court, the disqualification of Torra is already firm, which will foreseeably force him to leave the presidency of the Generalitat in the coming days.

He has one trick left in order not to be removed from the position: to appeal for protection to the Constitutional Court and ask it to suspend the execution of the sentence.

There is, however, no precedent for the Constitutional Court to have acceded to that request in cases of disqualification.

It

remains to be

seen if the

now abides by the sentence and leaves office and what will be the response from the pro-independence parties and entities, but also from the street.

Torra still has a few hours to call early elections, something he has not wanted to do so far.

If it does not do so, the substitution process will be activated so that the vice president, Pere Aragonès (ERC) assumes the acting presidency.

The Supreme Court has already disqualified a former president of the Generalitat, Artur Mas, for organizing the independence consultation on November 9, 2014. When he was disqualified, however, Mas was no longer in power.

The Supreme Court blinds in his sentence a hypothetical attempt by Torra to avoid being disqualified to continue occupying a public position, even if it is not that of president of the Generalitat or the result of elections.

The court recalls that he has been convicted in his capacity as a public authority and considers that the penalty of disqualification should cover any area.

When the crime of disobedience of article 410.1 of the Penal Code is committed in a public position of a political nature, such as that of the president of an Autonomous Community, the court points out, "it would constitute a mockery of the respect" that citizens owe to proper functioning of the public powers that the disqualification penalty was limited to the specific position in which the crime was committed, and allowed the convicted person to continue committing this kind of acts in another "analogous position, the direct or indirect result of political elections, by the mere the fact of moving from a position of political representation to a similar one in the autonomous government itself, or of the Nation, in the Autonomous Parliament, of the State or of the European Union, or at the municipal level ”.

The jurisprudence ―the case of Mas, but also that of the former deputy of Junts per Catalunya Francesc Homs― and the facts of the

--he himself admitted in the trial that he disobeyed-- invited to think that the Supreme Court would confirm the sentence handed down in January 2019 by the TSJC.

The Supreme Court recalls in its resolution this jurisprudence and also the fact that the

"at all times, before, during and after the oral trial, has not denied the display of banners and other symbols in public buildings dependent on the Generalitat, in especially on the facade of the Palau, and his refusal to comply with the orders of the Central Electoral Board ”, although he alleged that they were illegal orders and that they violated his freedom of expression.

"The Administration's demand for neutrality becomes more acute during electoral periods," says the court, which warns that "free suffrage" requires "establishing an electoral system that guarantees an institutional framework of neutrality in which the citizen can with absolute freedom, without interference from any public power, to decide the terms and scope of their political participation ”.

The court rejects the presumption of innocence alleged by Torra and recalls that the

is also a writer and a lawyer, "with above-average preparation and legal knowledge", which together with the different reports sent by the Legal Services of the Generalitat itself On the display of symbols in the headquarters of the autonomous administration, they conclude that Torra knew his obligation to comply with the mandates of the Electoral Board.

Despite this, the Supreme Court confirms "the forceful, repeated, stubborn and stubborn resistance of the accused to abide by a mandate vested with authority and issued in accordance with the law."

The Chamber considers that in addition to disregarding the mandate, Torra had “a conscious will and an unequivocal mental disposition of contravention”.

Appointed as successor by former president Carles Puigdemont, who fled to Belgium from the Spanish justice system, Torra ends his term for an act closely related to the

and its judicial consequences.

The

disregarded the repeated orders of the Central Electoral Board (JEC) to remove from the facade of the Palau de la Generalitat a banner calling for the freedom of the "political prisoners", alluding to the independence leaders imprisoned for organizing the Illegal 1-O referendum.

The JEC argued that the neutrality of the institutions should be guaranteed during the electoral period, but Torra refused to withdraw the banner during the general election campaign of April 28, 2019.

The ruling of the TSJC already indicated what the Supreme Court has now ratified, that Torra showed a “forceful, repeated, stubborn and stubborn resistance” to abide by the order of the Electoral Board.

His lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, appealed to the Supreme Court, which on September 17, in a public hearing in which Torra was present (without being able to speak), reviewed the case.