The independentist movement is rooted in corruption

 Carlos Jiménez Villarejo was chief prosecutor of the Prosecutor's Office against Corruption; Today is a national reference in the legal world. 


Jiménez Villarejo is one of the most preclear and critical minds with the Catalan independentist movement from the left. 



Rigorous professional, leftist man and reference for innumerable jurists, Jiménez Villarejo, who denounced from the Prosecutor's Office with his colleague José María Mena the scandal of Banca Catalana and Jordi Pujol as the main protagonist, is forceful in his opinions on the situation: "the procés has not had the necessary majority support, nor initial legal validity, nor solidity ". 

In this interview with Confilegal, he reviews what happened in Catalonia and has no doubt about the origins of what is happening: "Independence is rooted in corruption."

You say that the legal construction of the right to decide is not upheld, nor the alleged equalization of the procés with the assumptions of the right of self-determination. What is the problem? 

It happens that they have committed themselves to a project of the independence of Catalonia that therefore implies the breaking of the constitutional framework derived from the constitution of the 78 that, naturally, does not include nor ever included the right of self-determination of the Autonomous Communities no matter how much they are defined as historical territories, in particular the cases of Euskadi or Catalonia.

This right is only recognized at the international level by the UN in resolution 1514 of 1960 for the emancipation of countries colonized by Western powers.

When there has been some elucubration about the self-determination of peoples, and refer to consultations in Canada or Scotland, it should be noted that in these cases there were treaties and political agreements agreed long before the time these votes took place .

There was therefore a legal basis, but that legal basis does not exist in Spain so that no region can be separated. In a work that is about to be published by Juan Ramón Capella, Professor of Philosophy of Law, the right to self-determination is consensual, but it would always be based on highly qualified majorities.

This would mean that the participation of all the peoples that make up the territory that wants to emancipate should be 80 percent and that the favorable vote for the rupture of that territory would have to be between 55 and 60 percent of a participation 80 percent.

Very rarely has there been such participation in an election.

In summary, you state that "the procés has not had the necessary majority support, nor the initial legal validity, nor the solidity needed to convince other governments or international organizations." Do their protagonists live in a parallel reality? 

They live in a fictitious reality. On January 23, 2013, they approved the declaration of sovereignty and it is the first time that formally parties such as Convergencia and Esquerra, with the support of the initiative for Catalonia, approve a resolution declaring the Catalan people as sovereign holders.

A resolution that was suspended first and then annulled by the Constitutional Court and that evidently is contrary to the foundations of the Constitution.

From that moment on, it gained strength and in a parliamentary resolution (323 / X of September 27 of that year) they intend to draw up the program, budget and requirements for Catalonia to achieve independence in the future.

And it is something peculiar, considering that this parliamentary resolution was approved more than 5 years ago, because they even say that Catalonia is about to decide its political future as a people in September 2013! Look at what level of fiction they moved and they keep moving to decide then that independence was going to take place.

Therefore, the organizational basis of what they want to achieve is traced. 

Effectively. There is a chapter that they define as "State structure", which means that in 2013 the parallel structures are outlined, among them the Bank of Catalonia, Catalonia Bank.

Let's not forget that it is a parliamentary document.

Here contradictions occur.

They speak of the majority will of the people of Catalonia by virtue of the right to decide that nobody knows where it comes from because it is not in any international treaty, they created it, and in that context there are two things that are worrisome: that of the "state structures" or parallel state that aim to achieve and the subject of the language.

It is a resolution of 50 pages and as a reflection of the sectarianism that has dominated procés pro-independence there is a chapter entitled "Language and culture" which addresses this issue focused on schools, shopping centers, economic activity, etc. Particularly in institutes, colleges, and universities.

Any reference to Spanish is omitted in this chapter.

For those who came from outside and saw this text, they would think that Castilian is not part of the reality of Catalonia.

 This is very serious because it means expelling and belittling half of the population of Catalonia.

In addition, it represented at the time a huge and systematic violation of articles 6 and 32 of the statute of Catalonia, which proclaims that Castilian and Catalan are Catalan languages ​​and that any discrimination between citizens by reason of the language is prohibited.

As it turns out, it is the Parliament of Catalonia with its sovereign majority that approves a document in which it expels Castilian and all citizens who also express themselves in Spanish.

It is a document of extraordinary gravity that affects the total exclusion of Spanish in personal, school, external relations ...

"Pujolism has a very strong negative charge of corruption that is part of its historical design" 

The origin has to be found in Pujol.

So is. They had a dynamic driven from remote times by Jordi Pujol and pujolismo, which is a way of governing the historical right Catalonia represented in Democratic Convergence and then also by Democratic Union, which later separated from the independence thesis.

They are the ones who governed the first 23 years of Pujol as president and then the first years of the tripartite with Artur Mas.

 It was a historical party that already existed in the Republic.

The sovereign and independentist procés originates with the pujolismo and is reinforced from Mas with the tripartite.

Pujolism has a very strong negative charge of corruption that is part of its historical design.

Do not forget that during the process, when Mas is already there, we discover the plundering of the Palau that reaches the Democratic Convergence but before that scandal there is a historical moment that is when Maragall challenges Mas: "you have a problem and it is the 3 percent "that is what they charged for public works, this is now the object of a process that affects politicians and businessmen.

You always pointed to corruption

Is drawn in the map. There is a nationalist background that emerges with Pujol and then under the presidency of Mas that nationalism is gradually becoming a commitment to the independence movement that is rooted in the corruption that floods the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia.

The purpose is to cover all the elements of corruption that affect the ruling party without ignoring minor problems related to regional financing that would not have justified the independence phenomenon itself.

A crucial moment is the elections of September 2015, which are made with a plebiscite purpose and to which are linked Convergence, ERC, etc., to promote the independence option in order to break with the Spanish State and even with Spanish courts and at the same time guarantee the impunity of Democratic Convergence, which is affected by corruption.

And you point out that there is "cheating" about the parliamentary majority 

In those elections of 2015 they win by justita parliamentary majority.

We speak of an autonomous community that has the possibility of approving its own electoral law (such as Euskadi) but has never done so because the Catalanist right is favored by the electoral system of Spanish law by the D`Hont percentage. As the parliamentary majorities are short and never correspond to a social majority and stay at 40 and 45, by D'Hont law the rural vote of Gerona and Lleida favors them a lot, duplicates the results and does not correspond to the electoral principle of "one person, one vote".

Of course, nor do they propose a fairer electoral law in the sense of promoting a greater proportion between the vote and the seat.

Curiously, in the parliamentary document of September 2013 that I mentioned earlier, they said that they were betting on the approval of an electoral law "that would improve the democratic quality of our system".

It is evident that they have not done so because the application of the Spanish electoral law is already perfect. It leads them to have some deputies and senators that in a more equitable relationship between vote and seat would not achieve or reach a majority.

It is one of the contradictions that they drag and that they do not want to talk about. It is a lying way of doing politics.

They do not speak of a social majority when they speak of a parliamentary majority.


What is the role of the CUP? 

In the 2015 elections, the CUP, which calls itself anti-capitalist but perfectly understands the capitalist parties, when Convergencia and Esquerra win in coalition with their support, from there the CUP refuses Artur Mas to leave and opt for Puigdemont.

This man had experience as a councilor of the municipality of Girona but not to be the president of the seven and a half million Catalans.

They name a person who does not have democratic legitimacy and who is a radical, and who today lives now comfortably in Waterloo, fled from justice.

Then ANC and Omnium come into play 

Yes, because as of that moment, at the beginning of 2016, the pro-independence movement with multiple parliamentary resolutions was accentuated.

Here are some factors to highlight. An unholy alliance is established between the Government, Convergencia and Esquerra with the support of the CUP that is never in the government and supports from the outside. At the same time with a coalition formed by two civil associations lacking democratic legitimacy, which are cultural Omnium and Catalan National Assembly (ANC). In the same way they could have done it with two neighborhood associations.

And what can not be is that they came to make joint statements with the Government when nobody had chosen them. It seems to me a farce and a way to exercise political power in an arbitrary way incorporating institutions to non-elected associations. 

 I consider it serious. With them they approve certain resolutions, independence, disconnection with the Spanish people ... in documents in which they affirm forcefully that they will not respect the decisions of the Spanish State or will not comply with them and do not exclude episodes of violence that could occur in the process towards the disconnection .

You maintain that there is therefore an absence of legitimacy 

This is because the proces is progressing progressively and is advised by an organ not foreseen in the Statute, which is the advisory council of the national transition.

This unplanned body was the adviser long before 2016, it was created shortly after the declaration of sovereignty in 2013 and it has been the one that has been setting the ideological guidelines and drawing the strategy towards a new state. Without forgetting that it was created at the beginning of 2013 and was dissolved with the application of Article 155 at the end of October 2017, which are many years.

During that period it was governed with illegal institutions.

Watch out, we are not talking about four crazy people, it is a proces designed and planned and at the time a strategic committee was formed in 2017 that marked the steps that were taking place until the parliamentary sessions of September 6 and 7, 2017.

 "They name a person [Puigdemont] who does not have democratic legitimacy and who is a radical, and who today lives now comfortably in Waterloo, fled from justice"

Would it have been different to have tried the dialogue the Government of Mariano Rajoy? 

I understand that Mariano Rajoy was not the best candidate to enter into negotiations with a government that directly violated the Statute of Autonomy or with an Advisory Council not foreseen in the Statute.

Rajoy had a difficult role to establish dialogue with a government that accumulated this accumulation of legal infractions and political lies to his people, although they have sometimes appealed to dialogue, has more political discourse than anything else.

They had no interest. In an article published in El País of March 2017 signed by Junqueras and Puigdemont, they come to say that they have a plan for disconnection and that they have an overwhelming majority of Catalan society.

 It is obviously a lie, the most they have achieved were the results of December 21, 2017 in which they reached 47 percent, always according to the Spanish electoral law. But they speak permanently of an overwhelming majority. And when they talk about the dialogue with the government, they know it's a PP government.

And they have not had the will to dialogue.

The referendum law of self-determination and transience to the republic is approved by a just majority in Parliament and in a very tense situation.

Catalonia does not participate in Comu Podem.

Coscubiela, a member of Iniciativa per Catalunya, earns respect for his rupture by not allowing himself to debate.

 We find ourselves with a Parliament that approved the laws by a system directly qualified as undemocratic or authoritarian.

 The opposition had no opportunity to discuss the laws decided unilaterally and inflexibly. That is the advance of the unilateral declaration of independence of October 17 that led to the application of Article 155.

As for the events that affect justice, you highlight what happened in the Ministry of Economy. 

Indeed, because on September 20 the Court of Instruction number 13 that had initiated actions against the procés agreed on measures that were essential for the case that is beginning to be seen in the Supreme Court.

A massive concentration was held at the doors of the Ministry of Economy and Finance where very important documents were seized.

These people who staged the rally were being directed by Jordi Sánchez and Jordi Cuixart, there was a climate of enthusiasm and exaltation under the direction of these two civil leaders.

Then a conflict arose to the judicial commission to which they prevented to leave the building being forced to do it by the back of the building.

I will always remember the words of the lawyer who said she felt "terror, indignation and shame."

Because it had been a situation of radical opposition to a diligence ordered by a judge in conditions of extreme aggression with a crowd surrounding the building and with Cuixart who came to shout "will not happen".

And everything that happened: destroyed civilian vehicles; A few days later a demonstration took place before the Superior Court of Justice, which had ordered some arrests. Ex-Prosecutor Carlos Jiménez Villarejo during the reading of a manifesto at a ceremony of the Catalan Civil Society, held in Barcelona.

We arrived at 1-O 

The 1-0 was a query that did not contain any of the requirements of the Referendum Law of the Spanish State, which is the only one existing.

A law on popular consultations had been passed during the tripartite government and on November 9, 2014 the consultation was held in which a pseudo referendum was proposed that prohibits the Constitutional Court - it first suspends it and then annuls it.

They turn it into a popular consultation, practically in a survey. Everything was pure voluntarism, there was no ballot box, no control, no legal basis of who or not voted or where or who voted. It was an undemocratic consultation.

They deduced completely irregular and fictitious results and concluded that more or less two million people had voted in favor. It had an important dimension: Mas and two other consellers were tried and condemned by the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia for disobedience to the Constitutional Court.

As you pointed out in another interview with Confilegal, the situation for the judiciary was not easy 

 Is that you have to think that there were permanent protests from the people before the Court (which implied a coercion) and in that context it is true that there is an unusual event that sets the pattern of the response of the judiciary to the complaints of the independentists.

This is what prosecutor Emilio Sánchez Ulled said when Artur Mas described the trial as a "democratic anomaly".

Ulled replied: "Mr Mas, this judgment is also democracy." All that has had to be endured, yes. The Supreme Court, afterwards, ratified the sentence.

The Court of Auditors also intervened 

The consultation had an economic cost to pay all the necessary infrastructure to carry it out. About five million euros.

Among others, things were signed a contract of civil responsibility with AXA for the damages that could suffer the volunteers who came to participate in consultation. This led to the conviction of the Court of Auditors.

"The CDRs are citizens that at some point have been encouraged to act by the president of the Generalitat and that action is still a form of violence"

Do you think there was violence? 

When they deny the violent nature of that 1 O referendum, it is false. It is not true.

There was - I do not deny it - a possible excess of the State Security Forces that moved to Catalonia to guarantee that a referendum declared illegal by the Constitutional Court was not carried out.

Despite this, it was carried out with the support of the Mossos that did not prevent an illegal pseudo referendum.

 The Security Forces were there to counteract the passivity of the Mossos.

But I think it could have been avoided because that generated a conflict with significant levels of violence. The Prosecutor's Office, in its accusation, states that four citizens were seriously injured.

And another person suffered an eye injury from a rubber ball. It is provoked because the Catalan government imposes the referendum, although the mossos prayed that it was not done because of the violence that could be generated. But in addition the Prosecutor's Office reviews the names and surnames of the 23 members of the Civil Guard and the Police who were injured by the throwing of objects.

When they talk about the fact that there has been no violence during these months, there has been violence, at some time propitiated or favored and consented by the Government of the Generalitat.

To deny that is to deny reality, to deny the data that is already available. At the same time, in reference to the discussion of the jurists, it must be said that the notion of violence for the rebellion is not the armed rebellion of Primo Rivera, of July 36, or that of Tejero, there it occurred such a concept This has not happened here but the climate of violence is fomented, as is the case with threats and coercion, terms that continue to be used today.

Do you mean the actions of the CDRs? 

The CDRs are citizens that at some point have been encouraged to act by the president of the Generalitat and that action is still a form of violence.

The interruption of traffic means impeding the constitutional right of free movement of people and is also found in the Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 that is being violated.

There Torra was gloriously crying "push". 

Something has happened in this interruption of the routes.

Why did not the commanders order their forces to prevent it?

There is a crime in the Penal Code that is to omit acting in a crime that is being committed.

Why did not commanders act?

Not only did they cut the roads, but also the AVE tracks, in view of the passivity of the controls ... that means injury to a right and coercion. If the Superior Prosecutor's Office of Catalonia has ordered an investigation it is obvious: it had to do it. Remember when the members of this organization meet before the courts of Gava painting "¡que tremolin! (Let them tremble!) This is a war! "

 It is very serious, they are threatening aggression and death.

You can not pass this page like that, it's not a textbook, it's a proven reality.

I refer to an excellent work Rebellion and betrayal: the family devils of Europe and the euro order, the criminalist Luis Arroyo Zapatero

Meanwhile, what about the citizens? Do you consider that there is a sector of Catalan society that is "kidnapped"? 

You see, a friend called me recently: "I can not do it anymore, my children do not speak to me ...".

This is pure nonsense. No, the majority of Catalan society is not kidnapped, it is marginalized.

Really committed to independence there may be half a million people, but we are seven and a half million.

Is there boredom? 

Of course there is.

In 2013 Catalonia was "about to decide its future" and in 2019 there is no perspective. People get tired. Some get tired and others realize that it is a pure deception. It is unfeasible and in the event of a referendum the majority would be overwhelming against separation.

But to make a referendum of that kind supposes to carry out an evident fracture of the society.

And it happens that we have entered into a stage of uncertainty, because Sánchez is trying to find a way to agree but it is difficult. Barcelona en Comú does not have a clear attitude. The same happens to the PSC.

There is ambivalence with them.

And I think Pablo Iglesias should be more forceful. Faithful to its origins, Carlos Jimenez Villarejo mentions in the introduction of his book some words dated in 1980 from Antonio Gutiérrez Díaz who was secretary general of the PSUC and vice president of the European Parliament, to what should be Catalanism, confronting the progressive vision with the right.

"Catalonia today is the Catalonia of all and we will not let those who with extreme nationalisms and provocateurs want to use the Catalan flag to hide their class interests take away from us. (...) we should not fall into the trap of leaving it in the hands of those who want it to disguise that they are dirty ... ".

And he adds as a conclusion:

What great news these words have! We can not tolerate that Catalan or Spanish nationalism - they are very similar no matter how hard they try to hide it - advance in frank and very serious prejudice of the popular classes ".


https://confilegal.com/20181229-carlos-jimenez-villarejo-el-independentismo-catalan-tiene-su-raiz-en-la-corrupcion/