Spain pardons nine Catalan independence leaders this Tuesday: what does the measure imply?

Marina Artusa

06/21/2021 7:36 AM

• Clarín.com

• World

Updated 06/21/2021 12:27 PM

"Taking these nine people out of jail is a resounding message of the will for harmony and coexistence," President Pedro Sánchez said on Monday about the pardons to the

pro-independence politicians

convicted of organizing the separatist attempt of 2017 and that this Tuesday he will approve with his ministers.

From Barcelona, ​​the cradle of the illegal referendum and the unsuccessful unilateral declaration of independence of Catalonia, Sánchez insisted: “The pardon

is a necessary figure

, neither questioning nor revoking the final conviction.

It is simply another plan, ”he said about the decision that

will open the prison doors

to nationalist leaders as soon as it is published in the Official State Gazette.

He said it this Monday at the Gran Teatro del Liceu, the oldest in Barcelona,

on the Ramblas

, where he participated in a conference named after what the president came to communicate to the Catalans: “Reunion: a future project for Spain ”.

Pedro Sánchez, spoke at the Gran Teatro del Liceu, the oldest in Barcelona.

Photo: dpa

His speech, however, was

interrupted

several times

by cries

in favor of the independence of Catalonia and the amnesty of the imprisoned sovereignists.

“The government of Spain is going to take the step now.

And we are going to do it for harmony.

I am not unaware that there are people opposed to this measure and neither am I unaware of their reasons, I

respect them

", said Sánchez to which some voices from the audience responded:

" Independence is the only solution! "

There were protesters at the door of the theater that the Catalan authorities did not attend, considering that the event had been organized as part of

the government's “propaganda”.

Pro-independence protesters protest against Sánchez in Barcelona.

Photo: AFP

The pardons, with condition

The pardons that will exempt from serving in prison the sentences of between 9 and 13 years to which the independence leaders were sentenced for

sedition, embezzlement and disobedience

will set them free, but will

not forgive the disqualification

that weighs on all of them to hold public office.

The measures will also have

one condition

: they will be in force as long as the pardons do not comment on the crime again, that is, as long as they do not insist on organizing popular consultations or unilateral declarations that seek to

separate Catalonia from the rest of Spain.

In prison since November 2017 and sentenced to 13 years in prison, the former Catalan vice president and leader of the Esquerra Republicana de Cataluña (ERC),

Oriol Junqueras

, will be able to leave his cell in the Lledoners prison, on the outskirts of Barcelona, ​​but will not be able to run for or be appointed to any public office until 2031.

Independence protests in Barcelona.

AP Photo.

The pardon is a measure of exception and grace by which the State decides to

forgive totally or partially the fulfillment of his sentence

to someone who was convicted and has a final sentence.

However, it does not exempt you from repairing the damage caused.

Pardon is not amnesty

The pardon

differs from the amnesty

, which is what the Catalan independence movement demands, with the Government of the Generalitat at the head, in that it forgives only the penalty while the amnesty forgives the crime.

The Supreme Court, which was the one who condemned the independentistas in 2019, pointed out in a report that the pardon is

an "unacceptable solution"

and alluded to the dependence of the Pedro Sánchez coalition government on the parliamentary support of the sovereignists in exchange.

The president will insist on the "public utility" of the pardons so that the appeals filed against him, as the far-right party Vox is threatening to do, are not considered by Room III of the court.

Catalan President Pere Aragonès, however, considers that "the pardons are a step but not a solution."

"They are a correction to an unjust sentence," said Aragonès.

“The unjust sentences were not handed down to individuals who had carried out isolated actions, but to the political representatives who were voted for it.

There is, therefore, a conflict that must be unraveled by democratic means, that is, with a referendum on self-determination, ”insisted Aragonès.

It remains to be seen what the Catalan independence roadmap will be the day after the pardons.

A welcome with open arms

is planned

for the recently released at the Palau de la Generalitat and a trip to Belgium, more precisely to Waterloo.

There

the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont,

self-exiled since October 2017, after his failed declaration of independence, when he fled Spain to avoid the dungeon from which the pardons are about to free his partners from adventures,

set headquarters

.

"Sánchez presents today (this Monday) the contempt of legality and the embezzlement of sovereignty in the format of a

comic opera

at the Liceo de Barcelona," Pablo Casado, president of the Popular Party and leader of the opposition, dispatched himself.

"And with an audience subsidized with funds from the European Union, a virtual box in Lledoners, where they have written the script, and row 0 in Waterloo, which instead of clapping, kicks," added Casado.

Madrid, correspondent

ap

Look also

Spain: thousands of people protested in Madrid against pardons for the independence leaders of Catalonia

"Pedro, the magnanimous": possible pardons for Catalan leaders, another battle front for Sánchez in Spain