Junqueras and the ERC charges convicted by 1-0 ask the Supreme Court to revoke their sentences for the revision of the Penal Code

Oriol Junqueras, in the center, in a pro-independence demonstration, together with Carme Forcadell and Raül Romeva (on his left). MASSIMILIANO MINOCRI

The Esquerra Republicana commanders who were convicted of organizing the illegal referendum on October 1, 2017 are asking the Supreme Court for a review of the sentence that results in an unconditional acquittal.

The former vice president of the Generalitat Oriol Junqueras, the former president of the Parliament Carme Forcadell and the former councilors Raül Romeva and Dolors Bassa have presented the pleadings where they use the recent modification of the Penal Code as a basis to achieve an annulment of their sentences.

The writings insist that holding a referendum for independence like the one on October 1, 2017 cannot be a reason for judicial persecution.

"This party must insist on denouncing an unpredictable and disproportionate application of the criminal reaction to events that occur in the exercise of fundamental rights," says the letter presented by Junqueras' lawyer, Andreu van den Eynde.

It is argued that the referendum represented "the satisfaction of a political objective widely shared by a sector of the citizenry."

As a result of 1-O, the former vice president of the Generalitat was sentenced to 13 years in prison and 13 years of disqualification.

Now, Junqueras asks the Supreme Court to acquit him of the crimes of sedition and embezzlement for which he was convicted, in application of the Penal Code reform.

In his letter, he warns that replacing them with public disorder would be unconstitutional.

Carme Forcadell was sentenced to 11 years and six months in prison and at the same time disqualified, while Dolors Bassa received a sentence of 12 years in prison and 12 years of absolute disqualification, the same as Raül Romeva.

In June 2021 they were all pardoned, as were Junts-like politicians Jordi Turull, Josep Rull and Quim Forn, and the presidents of Òmnium and the ANC, Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart.

But the disqualification penalties remain firm.

The reform of the Penal Code has given rise to different procedural strategies.

In the case of the Esquerra charges, they have agreed to ask the Supreme Court to issue a new acquittal that completely extinguishes their criminal responsibility and that it also abolishes the disqualification sentences that were imposed on them in October 2019. They maintain that it is not appropriate maintain sanctions for a crime of embezzlement because in the events of the

there was no illicit enrichment of anyone.

Likewise, they allege that redirecting sedition towards aggrieved public disorder poses a normative dysfunction.

"The proven facts that in their day were subsumed in the crime of sedition cannot find a typical fit in any other crime and specifically cannot be subject to sanctions in accordance with the crime of public disorder", it is sustained in the allegations drafted by the lawyers for the convicted.

"The proven facts of the sentence do not prove that there was a will of the defendants in order to disturb public order, there being no reference to any violent objective," specifies the brief presented by Olga Arderiu, lawyer for Carme Forcadell.

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