Normality has been broken

Since, in 1997, the Judicial School became headquartered in the estate "L'Esperança", granted by the Generalitat of Catalonia and located on the mountain of Collserola, the annual delivery of offices to the end of the training that empowers the exercise of the judicial profession was carried out in Barcelona.

For more than 20 years a Spanish institution, the General Council of the Judicial Power, had as a sign of normality the presence of the State in Catalonia. The highest judicial authorities used to travel to Barcelona without major problems, in the exercise of what would have to continue being an uninterrupted tradition, highly significant, since in our multilevel system, in which the Judicial Power is unique, having the Judicial School in Catalonia symbolizes the equal consideration that all organs and institutions enjoy in our constitutional system, regardless of where they are located.

That "normality" seems to have been broken now. For the first time the delivery of offices can not be carried out where it used to be, where the studies took place, were it was considered important that it should be done, as a symbol. Officially we have been told that, coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the Constitution, it has been decided to make this delivery of offices in Madrid, to "enhance" it. The truth is that, although it is possible, that this is the real reason, many people, in Catalonia, we do not just believe it.

We do not believe it because, especially from that constitutionalist social majority, we are living it, once again, as a withdrawal from the State. Without knowing for sure where the proposal came from and who made the decision, we have the feeling that the current Spanish institutions do not feel, at the same time, Catalan. It is true that the Government held a Council of Ministers in Barcelona, ​​highly controversial, which aimed to symbolize a normal institutional presence in the main city of Catalonia. What for some constituted a "provocation" was perceived, by others, as the expression of the normal development of governmental functions and of the normal exercise of citizenship rights, among them, that those who constitutionally have been elected or appointed as rulers , can perform their functions normally in all Spanish territory.

Is it possible that the noisy rejection that the secessionism (the parties and social organizations that sustain the Government of the Generalitat and the majority secessionist of the Parliament of Catalonia) organized regarding this meeting of the Council of Ministers is at the origin of this resignation to the normal delivery of judicial offices in Barcelona? Has it also been influenced by a desire implicitly expressed from certain political positions, not to "bother" secessionism, although it can be interpreted as abandoning positions that show that it is in tune with social constitutionalism? Allow me to feel, like many other people, somewhat abandoned by those who would have to defend both their institutional position to perform their duties in their original environment and my right to do this with complete naturalness.

If all this is happening, it is because, for decades, the big parties have not believed in the State. They have preferred not to consolidate a core of common principles that guarantee a serious democratic political alternation, to obtain it through negotiation, the transfer of constitutional powers or the direct purchase of votes, which were lacking when there was not a sufficient majority for an investiture, some budgets or other laws, to peripheral nationalisms. Is the situation now so degraded that even the delivery of judicial offices has to be included in the transaction?

Published in "La Razón", on January 8, 2019.

https://teresafreixes.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/la-normalidad-rota/