The Supreme sits the former minister Meritxell Serret on the bench for the 'procés', but only for disobedience

Meritxell Serret, current ERC deputy in Parliament, will sit on the bench for disobedience in the independence challenge in the fall of 2017, when she was Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food of the government of the fugitive Carles Puigdemont.

The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court has issued an order to open an oral trial, although it refers the case to the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia.

Serret will only be tried for disobedience because neither the prosecutor's office, nor the State Attorney's Office nor Vox, which exercises the popular accusation, have asked that she be prosecuted for embezzlement, as the instructor of the

case in the high court intended, Pablo Llarena.

The Supreme recalls in a note that the parties requested that Llarena's order of conclusion of the summary be confirmed, dated May 6 of last year, and that an oral trial be opened "only for a crime of disobedience."

Thus, the court recalls, “by strict application of the accusatory principle, [the trial] is exclusively for the crime of disobedience of article 410 of the Criminal Code, “as all the parties have requested”, since the court, it argues, “ cannot open an oral trial for other crimes without the express request of any of them (...)”.

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The judge informs the former Minister Serret of her prosecution for embezzlement and disobedience

The case, therefore, goes to the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia, the competent body to judge for the crime of disobedience, given the status of regional deputy of Serret and "in coherence with the criteria of the Chamber when resolving the articles of prior pronouncement raised in the cause of the

by other defendants”.

Serret fled Spain in November 2017 and settled in Belgium, where he traveled with Carles Puigddemont and other members of his Government after the failed unilateral declaration of independence and the failure of the referendum.

On March 11 of last year he turned himself in to the Supreme Court.

Until that moment, the former counselor had been prosecuted in absentia in the

for embezzlement and disobedience, but throughout the trial that was held in the Supreme Court against the independence leaders who remained in Spain, it was not found that her department made specific payments for the organization of the 1-O referendum.

Llarena himself then wrote in the order to agree on the freedom of the former counselor after her delivery that the only crime of which there is evidence against Serret is disobedience, punishable by a fine and a maximum of two years of disqualification from employment or public office.

The ERC policy denied embezzlement in his statement before the judge, because he assured that his department did not assume any expenses related to the illegal 1-O referendum.

Regarding the crime of disobedience, he did admit that he received several requirements from the Constitutional Court, despite which, as a member of the Government, he endorsed the call for the referendum and the rupture laws.

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Former minister Serret goes to the Supreme Court to testify for the 'procés' after her return from Belgium