Alfonso Valero: What Tyrants do is claim that Democracy is above the Rule of Law

EN ES

Josep María Francàs
SinPostureo





ENGLISH

Calm conversation between Josep María Francas (@jmfrancas) and Alfonso Valero (@alfvalero) a non-practicing lawyer (England and Wales), founder of the Professors´ Forum (Foro de Profesores - @foroprofesores) 

JMF: You coordinate a group of law experts to follow the ‘procés’ trial. What is this group?
AV: The Jurists´ Committee to Analyze Special Cause 20907/2017 is a group of highly regarded lawyers and professors gathered with the unique compromise - as mere citizens - with the Rule of Law, the Spanish Constitution and democracy at large. Our objective is to follow the trial and then evaluate the fulfillment of the Spanish, European and International legal standards. That is, an unbiased technical, non political, analysis.
JMF: Is it an activity of the Professors’ Forum?
AV: Yes, it’s an activity of the Forum. However, some participants are members of the Professors’ Forum while others aren’t, yet they share a similar vision and compromise.
JMF: Are there only pro constitution lawyers in the group?
AV: Every single one of these jurists defends the Rule of Law, comprising the Spanish Constitution as an essential part of it, and democracy at large. In other words, for us, the only possible way to analyze a judiciary process is through legal parameters, leaving politics aside.
JMF: Are pro Independence jurists contaminated?
AV: I wouldn’t say contaminated, but if one’s analysis is shaped by a political vision, then it stops being techno-legal to become ideological. I think there must be separatist jurists who understand it is necessary to explain the Law for what it is, not for what one would wish it was. But this compromise with objectivity is not always present.
JMF: How do you see the trial so far?
AV: We shouldn’t forget we are just beginning the hearings. We have just heard accused parties. First their pleas regarding potential violations of their rights and then their depositions as indicted. Thus, the main part is still to come. In my opinion, so far, the accused have foregone an opportunity. Instead of using their turn to present legal pleas, they decided to give political speeches. Instead of defending their position, they have opted for “teaching” the court and cite some rights allegedly more important than the Law. Anyhow, the trial has just begun.
JMF: Is democracy above the Law?
AV: Democracy doesn’t exist if it is not through the Law. To appeal to a democracy that is above the Law is what tyrants do… “I know what people want/need, so I go over the Law as it doesn’t fit my plans”.
During this first week of trial, we heard Mr. Torra [current Catalan regional president] in a radio interview on Onda Cero say how he plans to change the law if his loses the majority… There it is: if you don’t have a majority you don’t speak in the name of democracy but just in the name of your group of power. A power you want to impose over the law, outside democracy.
JMF: This is their main argument so far…
AV: It’s a populist argument, but it sells well. Everybody loves an oppressed rebel. It’s an instinctive emotional reaction. Nationalism pivots on its appeal to these emotional reactions. “Democracy” resounds nicely while “Law” sounds hard and rigid. They have also argued they are not bound to obey the court as it is illegitimate. They use the kind of tyrannical arguments we often hear from Venezuela’s President Maduro. But as both Venezuelans and Spaniards know very well, if the Law isn’t above the powerful democracy doesn’t exist. Let me ask you something, when former separatist Catalan regional President Mas stopped voting in the 2014 referendum using the Mossos [Catalan police force] baton in hand… did he do it in the name of democracy or under the Rule of Law?
JMF: What did Mas do? I don’t remember.
AV: In May 2014 there was a “multi referendum” with questions about fracking, transgenics, the Generalitat’s public debt… among others. The Generalitat [Catalan Regional Government] sent their Mossos to seize the ballots because it was an illegal vote. Some of the organizers ended up sentenced guilty of disobedience.
JMF: Right, I had forgotten… What interest does this trial have from a legal point of view?
AV: It is very relevant. First, it will clear the facts and will determine what is proven. From a strictly legal point of view if will clarify the scope of the rebellion crime. Article 472 of the Criminal Code requires violent upraise. What needs to be clarified is the concept of violence itself. Some argue violence occurs only when weapons are used; other maintain violence is not only an act like Tejero’s [takeover the Spanish congress] in 1981, but it must also include the possibility of using it. Actually, those who defend the need of physical violence are saying that any rebellion without shooting is not a rebellion. Or something even more perverse: any failed rebellion is not a rebellion as a winning one would never be considered so because there would be nobody to prosecute it.
JMF: How does the international press see the trial?
AV: Aside from some remarkable exceptions, the international press is using this trial to lecture Spain about democracy. For instance, British daily The Independent started by saying they didn’t want to meddle with Spanish democracy and then went on doing the exact opposite. The Times did it too, though much more courteously. French journals have mixed reactions. Nevertheless, it is obvious that separatists are seizing this opportunity for their propaganda, they are using their so called “embassies” and all the resources at their disposal. The [Spanish] government should be much more educational and active to prevent the use of taxpayer’s money to attack the Spanish democracy and its judiciary.
JMF: Are they winning in the international battlefront due to the Spanish Government’s failure to appear?
AV: The Spanish government is doing something, though bashfully, while facing a very well lubricated machinery engineered for situations like the current one. Their arguments are ready, its funding well set up… for example, an organization named “Foreign Friends of Catalonia” publicly admits to host journalists for free. They facilitate interviews with families, obviously only separatist ones, and translate for them. These kind of activities need funding. Money that separatists don’t mind diverting from other high priority needs. Despite this, I don’t advocate for the Spanish government to do the same. Instead, they should provide more information and develop an educational strategy for journalists and diplomats and explain, openly, what is happening.
JMF: Nationalist money comes from every Spaniard taxpayer’s pocket. If they could just control this…
AV: That’s right. Not so long ago President Sanchez declared he couldn’t think of any other solution than dialogue… Without debating or refuting that statement I would like to supplement it: Audit their finances and figure out the origin of the expenditures. We don’t need to reinstall article 155 to do so. A proper control of the adequate use of taxpayer’s money everywhere in the country would be enough.
JMF: But you need to want to do it…
AV: You can’t expect those kinds of decisions during a pre-election period. I would settle with the government countering separatist propaganda. What The Independent may print has a relatively low importance. Its opinions and assessments don’t change the fact that Spain is a full fledge democracy (one out of a total of 20 in the world) and the fact that King Felipe VI received the Jurists for Peace World Association Award for his “unyielding” compromise with the Rule of Law, freedom and the constitutional order. Yet it is important insofar as it influences international opinion. The efforts of any Spanish government should walk along those lines.
JMF: I’m afraid the current Spanish government [socialist party] won’t do any of that if they need the support of the secessionists to govern. Just as they have done until now.
AV: Given I’m talking to you in the context of an activity of the Professor’s Forum I can’t give you answers to political matters. I wouldn’t want to confuse or mislead your readers.
JMF: Will you publish any reports about the trial
AV: We will indeed but only once the deposition period ends and then, later, when they publish the sentence. We’d like to publish it in Spanish, and, at least, also in English. Even though it will be a scholarly text it will also be educational and written taking into account the population at large.
JMF: Will you make any statements during the trial?
AV: Many Jurist Committee members frequently participate in different media. Many of them have weekly columns where they comment the trial. However, right now we don’t have any plans to publish anything as a Jurist Committee. That’s because we aim to make a rigorous in-depth report based on the legal standards of the Spanish, European and International Law, not on the day to day issues of the oral proceedings.
JMF: Thank you very much Alfonso. Warm regards. See you soon.
AV: Likewise. See you soon.

ESPAÑOL

Alfonso Valero: ‘Apelar a una democracia por encima de la ley es lo que hacen los tiranos…’

http://www.sinpostureo.com/politica/alfonso-valero-apelar-a-una-democracia-por-encima-de-la-ley-es-lo-que-hacen-los-tiranos/

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The Catalan Republic that waits for us

EN ES

Teresa Freixes

10/3/2019

ENGLISH

Without having access to this project of Constitution for Catalonia, I already warned, in my book "155. The days that shook Catalonia" about various regulations that are contained in it. I reproduce some extracts, aimed at better understanding what they are (I say they are in present tense, because they do not stop), trying to create in Catalonia.

Extracts:

It was precisely a judge who was one of the first to tell us what was to come. From his official premises in the Center for Legal Studies of the Generalitat, Judge Vidal devoted himself to interviewing lawyers who were sensitive to independence to incorporate them as judges on the day of secession. And with such baggage he walked through towns and villages of Catalonia explaining the draft Catalan Constitution that he had drawn up. He explained to us repeatedly, although it seemed that many did not hear it or did not want to hear it, that "they" ("nosaltres", as he said) had the lists of judges and officials with whom one could count and those with whom one could not count at all; that is, they had identified the faithful and those who had to purge. Let's not forget that the Ministry of Justice has had to activate an emergency telephone number to attend judges who may feel harassed and that both they and prosecutors are subject to police protection, which is the last thing that can happen in a democracy. Well, it is "his democracy", his "smile revolution", his "trip to Ithaca", his descent, rather, towards the precipice.

The attribution of nationality, basic legal institution in the creation of any State, is inspired by the regulations in the Baltic republics, which have produced so much discrimination in minorities that were not nationals of the place when these territories proclaimed independence. This Law, like the ones that the pro-secession supporters say constitute their model, contains generic regulations that will require a development in which they will have to detail what specific requirements (not only filiation and residency) will have to be met to obtain Catalan nationality. The same technique as applied there. Firstly, generic regulations that do not raise suspicions. Then, when the specific law is adopted, the criteria that favor what you want to favor are set. And whoever does not comply with them cannot adopt the nationality and, depending on how all this is regulated, they can remain stateless, as has happened in the Baltic republics, and if they do not remain stateless they will have to see if they can maintain nationality of origin or not, under what conditions and with what effects. The same as in the Baltic. The same technique as applied there. First, to obtain independence, they make everyone believe that virtually all persons can have the nationality and, subsequently, the requirements are established with supremacist criteria. That is not in the Law, but we have been told as such in numerous conferences and courses by people belonging to the Council for the national transition, which is the one that advises in the elaboration of all the rules of rupture with Spain. By the way, they forget that no State can unilaterally attribute -as they also claim- double nationality with another country.

In effect, if we pay attention to what is manifested in the Reports of the "Consell per a la Transició Nacional" and we cross them with the Roadmap that, although the authorship is somewhat confused, circulates coming from the National Catalan Assembly, we see that they want to create a certain parallelism between what they have called "el procés" and "Vía Báltica" and their conformation of nationalist assimilation. By making the language an instrument of political domination, by offering all kinds of advantages to those considered "foreigners" if they adhere to the postulates of secessionism, and by threatening and considering as traitors the Catalans who resist, some actively and others without distinguishing individually, to be assimilated to the "processism", the Government of the Generalitat is entering into a dangerous strategy of confrontation with its own citizenship. It offers "advantages" to its faithful while threatening to purge and retaliate against "the dissidence", media included.


It is also impossible to affirm unilaterally that the "new Catalan Republic" will grant nationality to all those who are in its territory, with added rights and perks, because this is, on the one hand, demagogic (as did the Baltic independence movements) and, on the other hand, legally nonsense. In Catalonia many people live with a Spanish nationality and a European citizenship that we do not want to renounce and we do not want, as in a report paid by the Generalitat, to be in a similar situation to the citizens of northern Cyprus, in the area under occupation from Turkey, with diminished rights. How does this combine with the promises of "papers for all"?


This has become crystal clear in the draft that was leaked, prior to the Conference in Madrid City Council, of the Law of Transition that, in secret, was preparing the pro-secession crew and that differs little from the one finally approved on the second day of the "Plenaries of shame", on last September 7. More legal botched job is unimaginable. As I have already pointed out, but it is important to repeat again, in a similar way to what the German Enabling Act of 1933 had in its day, which allowed National Socialism to subvert the Weimar regime without officially repealing it. This law tried, among others things, through the euphemism of the "right to receive adequate training" [the "reeducation" to which they are going to submit us and which they already explained to us at the Escola d'Estiu de Prada or at conferences of the Director of the School of Public Administration], to force civil servants and citizens in general, to commit the most flagrant illegalities under threats and sanctions. It also provided for the seizure of state property. Childishly enough, it established the assumption of "Catalan nationality" without loss of the Spanish one, warning that "negotiations" will be initiated in this regard with the "Spanish State". It intended to grant amnesty to all those convicted of illegal actions in relation to the procés. It eliminated the co-official nature of the Spanish language in Catalonia. It tried to grant, to the own Spanish Constitution or the Statute of Autonomy, rank of law only in those areas in which they were not opposed to the new legality: which is a legal nonsense of monumental category, without respect of the principles of hierarchy and competence, impossible to be analyzed from a legal perspective for the rudeness of its articulation.


Already at the Universitat Catalana d'Estiu we were told that civil servants would have to "recycle”, not only those of state bodies, but also those of the Generalitat and local administrations, because we had to adapt to the rules and principles of the future "Catalan Republic". The director of the School of Public Administration of Catalonia also reinforced these statements. The members of Parliament themselves of JxS insisted on it and, in addition, the President of the Generalitat, repeated it in parliamentary seat. Thus it threatens, let’s see it well, not for not complying with the law, but for not violating it! And the authorities, - our authorities I was going to say, but they are not "ours", that is to say, of all, but only of a few -, voluptuously applaud that the maximum representation of the State in Catalonia, that is, the President of the Generalitat, endorses the vulgar direct threats inflicted by a member of Parliament. True, freedom of expression in the Parliament can do everything ... Until what is expressed becomes a legal act. There, at the time it occurs, it will no longer fit to hide in the shelter of the camera to attempt against citizens' rights.

To give some recent examples, since it would be impossible to detail the entire history of the appeals before the TC, I will point out some relevant issues in which the Tribunal's action has been very important. I will only mention some, after the declaration of unconstitutionality on the Law of the referendum and the Law of Transition, because we cannot get lost in so many jurisdictional recesses:

- About the DUI. Although the DUI that was adopted does not have real effects, there was a parliamentary act of proclamation which was object of appeal of unconstitutionality and was suspended by the TC, precautionary by admitting to process the appeal, waiting for the ruling on the merits. This is superimposed on the appeal of constitutional protection filed by the PSC during the parliamentary procedure and the incident of execution of sentence that I have warned about in another chapter, because the DUI was previously prohibited by another previous sentence of the TC. Subsequently, the TC declared the DUI unconstitutional in a final judgment.


- About the Catalan Social Protection Agency, suspended with the admission of the appeal for processing. It was another "state structure" they had prepared. They have been building what would be a "parallel state", using unfairly the powers attributed to them by the Constitution and the Statute of Autonomy.

- About the cyber-security agency of Catalonia also suspended with the admission to processing of the appeal; with this they wanted to take control of all electronic communications, banking, personal, administrations, health services, etc... trying this way, by violating the most elementary principles of data protection and the necessary control that must exist over information services, public security, etc., to dissociate them from the state and European organisms so that they could not be controlled from other instances.


- On the alleged investiture of the fugitive Puigdemont: In an interpretative boast, through precautionary measures and without deciding on the admissibility of the Government's appeal, it has blocked the investiture at a distance or by delegation, and forced the fugitive to appear before the investigating judge to, once he decides on his procedural situation, be authorized or not to attend the session in which he intends to be invested.

With all the Agencies, Offices, etc. they have been creating what would be the "ministries of the Catalan republic". "The state is to be cheated".... The famous DUI is the most striking, the tip of the iceberg, but what is important is what they have been building underneath, without being seen or noticed except for a few voices to which nobody has paid the least attention.

ESPAÑOL

LA REPÚBLICA CATALANA QUE NOS ESPERA

Sin tener acceso a este proyecto de Constitución para Cataluña, ya advertí, en mi libro "155. Los días que estremecieron a Cataluña" acerca de diversas regulaciones que e contienen en ella. Reproduzco algunos extractos, dirigidos a que se comprenda mejor lo que están (digo están, en presente, porque no cejan) pretendiendo crear en Cataluña.

Extractos:

Fue precisamente un juez uno de los primeros que nos contó lo que iba a venir. Desde su despacho oficial del Centro de Estudios Jurídicos de la Generalitat, el juez Vidal se dedicó a entrevistar a abogados que fuesen sensibles a la independencia para incorporarlos como jueces el día que llegara la secesión. Y con tal bagaje se paseaba por pueblos y pueblitos de Cataluña explicando el proyecto de Constitución catalana que él mismo había elaborado. Nos explicó repetidamente, aunque parecía que muchos no lo oían o no querían oírlo, que “ellos” (“nosaltres”, decía) tenían las listas de jueces y funcionarios con los que se podía contar y con los que no, es decir, que tenían identificados a los fieles y a los que tenían que depurar. No olvidemos que el Ministerio de Justicia ha tenido que activar un teléfono de emergencia para atender a los jueces que pudieran sentirse acosados y que tanto ellos como los fiscales son objeto de protección policial, lo cual ya es lo último que puede pasar en una democracia. Bueno, es "su democracia", su "revolución de las sonrisas", su "viaje a Ítaca", su descenso, más bien, hacia el precipicio.

La atribución de la nacionalidad, institución jurídica básica en la creación de cualquier Estado, está inspirada en las regulaciones de las repúblicas del Báltico, que tanta discriminación han producido en las minorías que no eran nacionales del lugar cuando estos territorios proclamaron la independencia. Esta Ley, como las que el secesionismo dice que constituyen su modelo, contiene regulaciones genéricas que precisarán de un desarrollo en el que se tendrán que detallar qué requisitos concretos (no sólo filiación y residencia) se tendrán que cumplir para obtener la nacionalidad catalana. La misma técnica que allí. Primero regulaciones genéricas que no levantes sospechas. Luego, cuando se adopta la ley específica, se fijan los criterios que favorezcan lo que se quiere favorecer. Y quien no cumpla con ellos no puede adoptar la nacionalidad y, según como se regule todo esto, pueden quedarse como apátridas, como ha sucedido en las repúblicas bálticas, Y si no se quedan como apátridas habrá que ver si pueden o no mantener la nacionalidad de origen, en qué condiciones y con qué efectos. Lo mismo que en el Báltico. La misma técnica que allí. Primero, para obtener la independencia, se hace creer que prácticamente todo el mundo podrá tener la nacionalidad y, posteriormente, se establecen los requisitos con criterios supremacistas. Eso no está en la Ley, pero nos lo han contado en numerosas conferencias y cursos, personas pertenecientes al Consejo para la transición nacional, que es el que asesora en la elaboración de todas las normas de ruptura con España. Por cierto, olvidan que ningún Estado puede atribuir unilateralmente -como además pretenden- la doble nacionalidad con ningún otro.

En efecto, si hacemos caso de lo que se manifiesta en los Informes del “Consell per a la Transició Nacional” y los cruzamos con la Hoja de Ruta que, aunque la autoría sea un tanto confusa, circula por ahí como proveniente de la Asamblea Nacional Catalana, vemos que quieren crear un cierto paralelismo entre lo que han denominado “el procés” y la “Vía Báltica” y su conformación de la asimilación nacionalista. Haciendo de la lengua un instrumento de dominación política, ofreciendo todo tipo de ventajas al por ellos considerado “foráneo” si se adscribe a los postulados del secesionismo y amenazando y considerando como traidores a los catalanes que se resisten, algunos activamente y otros sin significarse individualmente, a ser asimilados al “procesismo”, el Govern de la Generalitat está entrando en una peligrosa estrategia de la confrontación con su propia ciudadanía. Ofrece “ventajas” a sus fieles mientras amenaza con depuraciones y represalias a “la disidencia”, medios de comunicación incluidos.

No se puede, tampoco, afirmar unilateralmente que la “nueva república catalana”, otorgará la nacionalidad a todos quienes estén su territorio, con derechos y prebendas añadidos, porque ello es, por una parte, demagógico (igual lo hicieron los movimientos independentistas del Báltico) y, por otra parte, jurídicamente un sinsentido. En Cataluña vivimos muchas personas con una nacionalidad española y una ciudadanía europea a la que no queremos renunciar y no queremos, como en un Informe sufragado por la Generalitat consta, quedar en una situación similar a los ciudadanos del norte de Chipre, en la zona ocupada por Turquía, con derechos capitidisminuidos. ¿Cómo se conjuga ello con las promesas de “papeles para todos”?

Ello ha quedado meridianamente claro en el borrador que se filtró, previamente a la Conferencia en el Ayuntamiento de Madrid, de la Ley de transitoriedad que, en secreto, estaba preparando el secesionismo y que difiere en poco a la finalmente aprobada el segundo día de los “Plenos de la vergüenza”, el 7 de septiembre pasado. Mayor chapuza jurídica es inimaginable. Como ya he señalado anteriormente, pero es importante repetirlo, de forma similar a lo que dispuso en su día la Ley Habilitante alemana de 1933, que permitió al nacionalsocialismo subvertir el régimen de Weimar sin derogarlo oficialmente. Pretendía, entre otras, esta ley, mediante el eufemismo del “derecho a recibir una formación adecuada” [la “reeducación” a la que nos van a someter y que ya nos explicaron en l’Escola d’Estiu de Prada o en las conferencias del Director de la Escuela de Administración Pública], obligar a los funcionarios y a la ciudadanía en general, a cometer las más flagrantes ilegalidades bajo amenazas y sanciones. Disponía, también, la incautación de bienes estatales. Establecía infantilmente la asunción de la “nacionalidad catalana” sin pérdida de la española, advirtiendo que se “iniciarán negociaciones” al respecto con el “Estado español”. Pretendía amnistiar a todos los condenados por actuaciones ilegales en relación con el procés. Eliminaba la co-oficialidad de la lengua española en Cataluña. Pretendía otorgar, a la propia Constitución española o al Estatuto de Autonomía, rango de ley en lo que no se opusiera a la nueva legalidad, lo cual es un disparate jurídico de monumental categoría, sin respeto de los principios de jerarquía y competencia, imposible de ser jurídicamente analizado por lo grosero de su articulación.

Ya en la Universitat Catalana d’Estiu se nos explicó que los funcionarios tendríamos que “reciclarnos”, no sólo los de cuerpos estatales, también los de la Generalitat y de las administraciones locales, porque teníamos que adaptarnos a las reglas y principios de la futura “república catalana”. El director de la Escuela de Administración Pública de Cataluña reforzó también esas declaraciones. Los propios diputados de JxS insistieron en ello y, además, el President de la Generalitat, lo repitió en sede parlamentaria. Con ello se amenaza, véase bien, no por no cumplir la ley, sino por no violarla!!! Y las autoridades, iba a decir nuestras autoridades, pero no son “nuestras”, es decir, de todos, sino de unos cuantos, aplauden voluptuosamente que la máxima representación del Estado en Cataluña, es decir, el President de la Generalitat, respalde las barriobajeras amenazas directas infligidas por un diputado. Cierto, la libertad de expresión en el Parlament todo lo puede…. Hasta que lo expresado se convierte en acto jurídico. Ahí, en el momento en que se produzca, ya no va a caber el esconderse en el cobijo de la cámara para atentar contra los derechos ciudadanos.

Por poner algunos ejemplos recientes, ya que sería imposible detallar toda la historia de los recursos ante el TC señalaré algunos asuntos relevantes en los que ha sido muy importante la actuación del Tribunal. Sólo mencionaré algunos, posteriores a la declaración de inconstitucionalidad sobre la Ley del referéndum y la Ley de transitoriedad, porque no podemos perdernos en tantos recovecos jurisdiccionales:

- Sobre la DUI. Aunque la DUI que se adoptó no tiene efectos reales, existió un acto parlamentario de proclamación fue objeto de recurso de inconstitucionalidad y fue suspendido por el TC, cautelarmente al admitir a trámite el recurso, esperando la sentencia sobre el fondo. Ello se superpone al recurso de amparo que presentó el PSC durante el trámite parlamentario y al incidente de ejecución de sentencia que he advertido otro capítulo, porque la DUI ya estaba previamente prohibida por otra sentencia anterior del TC. Posteriormente, el TC declaró anticonstitucional la DUI en sentencia definitiva.

- Sobre la Agencia catalana de protección social, suspendida con la admisión a trámite del recurso. Se trataba de otra "estructura de estado" que tenían preparada. Han ido construyendo lo que sería un "estado paralelo", utilizando en forma desleal las competencias que tienen atribuidas por la Constitución y el Estatuto de Autonomía.

- Sobre la Agencia de ciberseguridad de Cataluña también suspendida con la admisión a trámite del recurso, con la que querían hacerse con el control de todas las comunicaciones electrónicas, bancarias, personales, de las administraciones, de los servicios de salud, etc… intentando de este modo, vulnerando los más elementales principios de la protección de datos y del necesario control que tiene que existir sobre servicios de información, seguridad pública, etc. desvincularlas de los organismos estatales y europeos para que no pudieran ser controlados desde otras instancias.

- Sobre la pretendida investidura del prófugo Puigdemont: En un alarde interpretativo, mediante medidas cautelares y sin decidir sobre la admisión a trámite del recurso del Gobierno, ha bloqueado la investidura a distancia o por delegación y obliga al prófugo a personarse ante el juez instructor para, una vez que éste decida sobre su situación procesal, ser autorizado o no a asistir a la sesión en la que pretende ser investido.

Con todas las Agencias, Oficinas, etc. han ido creando lo que serían los "ministerios de la república catalana". El hay que "engañar al Estado".... La famosa DUI viene a ser lo más llamativo, la punta del iceberg, pero lo importante es lo que han ido construyendo por debajo, sin que se viera ni advirtiera más que por escasas voces a las que no nos han hecho el más mínimo caso.

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Complete text of the draft Catalan constitution

EN ES

11/5/2016 El periódico







ENGLISH
The speakers have handed over the document to Carme Forcadell in the Parlament.
This is the full text of the draft constitution of Catalonia that the entity Constituïm has handed over to the President of the Parliament of Catalonia, Carme Forcadell.





ESPAÑOL

Texto completo del borrador de constitución catalana

https://www.elperiodico.com/es/politica/20160511/constitucion-catalana-texto-completo-pdf-5123613

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The Republic that Puigdemont was planning - The pro-independence supporters wanted to prohibit the parties against the Catalan state and limit the right of citizenship

The Generalitat sought to collect 4.2 million from 300 companies and confiscate 19,000 million from the State after a DUI

Juan José Fernández

Madrid - Friday, 03/08/2019 | Updated on 03/09/2019 at 11:48 CET



Two fragments from the project of Constitution for a Catalan republic as drafted by the former judge Santiago Vidal. / EL PERIODICO

The Government of Carles Puigdemont planned for the first moments of an independent Catalonia to capture 4.200 million euros in social contributions from companies, to spend 499 million euros to activate their own treasury and to confiscate real estate from the Spanish State for 19,134 million euros.

These figures are derived from the set of reports and other contributions of the Civil Guard to the investigation of the Court of Preliminary Investigation 13 of Barcelona for crimes connected with the preparation of independence. Among the elements of evidence presented, a draft of a Catalan constitution that foresees important limitations of political rights for parties and officials who do not support the pro-independence movement.

For example, and to diminish legitimacy from possible appeals or protests from within, the Catalan constitution project found among Vidal’s documents foresaw the limitation of rights to those implicitly considered as internal enemies: "Catalan citizenship will not be obtained, nor kept, by those people who, not being Catalans of origin, have been military professionals and/or forces of public military or civil order of the Kingdom of Spain and/or have been part of a foreign government".

In addition, the basic rule of the new republic would impose, according to the documents found, to all civil servants the obligation to choose a single nationality, and would give them six months to decide either to practice in Catalonia as Catalan citizens or not being Catalan citizen, in which case they will not be allowed to practice.

In the republic foreseen by the pro-independence movement, not all ideas could be defended. In Santi Vidal's sketch there is an article that foresees to allow "the existence of all kinds of political participation as long as its electoral program does not go against the existence of Catalonia as a State or against this Constitution". In terms of internal security, the plans proposed the creation in the police of this republic of a "unit specializing against violent pro-Spain groups" which could exercise "police pressure" on the most heated disaffected.

The lawyer of the court that intervened in the search, as well as the guards who carried it out and who analyzed the documentation, were struck by the shocking detail that, for the notes of the Catalan constitution, Vidal used hundreds of pages of the Administration of Justice of Spain, official paper, with the shield of the State, coming from the court in which he exercised.

Social security, key

The investigations have revealed the participation of important consulting, technology and information firms to prepare the data management bases necessary to create a Catalan social security. So far no payments have been discovered to these companies, including Deloitte, IT-Sistems and IBM, only budgets from technicians of the Generalitat.

With the Center for Telecommunications and Information Technology (CTTI) as a pivot, under the political direction of the minister for Labor Dolors Bassa and its Secretary General Josep Ginesta, and with experts from the center experts in computer networks, the Government designed a system of raising social resources for the beginnings of a Catalonia separated from Spain.

The plans, intervened by the Civil Guard in their searches held on September 20, 2017 - Operation Anubis - by order of Court 13, include technological preparations that were already well advanced before the Parliament enacted the laws of disconnection that later suspended the Constitutional Court.


Annotations in the papers intervened by the Civil Guard to the technician of the Departament de Treball David Franco on September 20, 2017. On the left, a diagram of the collection system for a social security in independent Catalonia. On the right, the figures of affiliates and retirees that the Govern Puigdemont forecast. / EL PERIODICO

For the Civil Guard, it was "key in the disconnection to assume the social security system", it says in a report. The plans pointed to the need to have accession -or compliance- of at least from 100 leading companies in Catalonia. With the contributions to the Social Security of those companies, plus those of 233 entities of the public sector controlled by the Generalitat, the designers of the plan foresaw to gather a critical mass of income of 4,200 million euros.

But that was in the first phase. The objective in terms of Social Security was to collect and manage the contributions of 3.2 million taxpayers and control 690,000 companies, including the self-employed, and the pensions of one million retirees.

Among the documents seized by the Civil Guard at the headquarters of the Department of Labor in the tense day of September 20, there are notes from the technician David Palanques foreseeing that the Generalitat stands as "the authority requesting in Catalonia all taxes and all the fees and obligations of any type for the social security system and passive classes".

The agency that would administer them would be a Catalan Agency for Social Protection. For the technical design of that agency, the Generalitat requested sketches from the Deloitte firm, according to notes intervened with the work technician David Franco. Its participation was budgeted at 197,508 euros, although the notes also foresee a "no VAT" price: 163,230. In those notes there are also allusions to participation in these tasks of HP, IBM, Itteria and the Cesicat.

They were needed to implement a Data Processing Center (CPD) that was going to have a budget of 1,471,247 euros in 2017 and 2,537,561 in 2018. The CPD would have to be able to manage the data of the mentioned 3.2 million taxpayers and 300,000 affiliations per year.

Catalan Finance Department

Beyond the famous Moleskine of Josep Lluís Salvadó, Secretary of the Department of Economy and Finance, the Civil Guard has also analyzed a pen drive of Salvadó with a single document, "Activitats i mesures adreçades a la creació de l'Estat Catalá", which contains a quantification of the resources necessary for the deployment of the treasury of an independent Catalonia on the same day 1 of the breakup.

According to the calculations that Salvadó made, that would mean spending 499,860,737 euros, and increase the staff of the Catalan Tax Agency in 7,000 people. All this, clarifies the Civil Guard, without counting on "the amount necessary for the deployment of the customs or the real estate agency", which would be the Catalan land registry.

And all this calculated as an extension only budget, without counting the resources already employed, in the autonomic phase, in creating an independent tax system: "It is inferred that around 17 million euros have been invested in the deployment of the tax administration as a step intermediate to reach the full fiscal sovereignty of the future Catalan state", the investigators assure to Judge Alejandra Gil, the one to take care of the preliminary investigations initiated by the late Judge Juan Antonio Ramírez Sunyer.

Confiscation of State property

The appropriation of other resources by a Catalan government already separated from Spain would have legal coverage at the highest normative level of the new Catalan republic.

Among the papers seized from former judge Santiago Vidal at his home that September 20, there was an imitation of a Catalan constitution. The last article is a "decree of confiscation", with such a title, which runs like this: "The assets existing on the day of the declaration of independence, within the current territory of Catalonia, belonging to the Kingdom of Spain, pass over to the property of the Catalan Republic".

The Secretary of Finance Salvadó had a team of 10 people, investigated by the Security Forces, working on an inventory of real state property and its value. The figure that came out was 19,134 million euros. The confiscation of State assets by a disconnected Generalitat had been the subject of open debates at the Catalan National Assembly, when in conferences or colloquiums were raised the first steps of a Catalonia separated from Spain.

https://www.elperiodico.com/es/politica/20190308/planes-govern-puigdemont-independencia-cataluna-7343958

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Viver Pi-Sunyer's hypocrisy: from denying everything before the judge to fanning the independence dream

EN ES

Laura Fábregas
12/1/2019 Crónicaglobal

ENGLISH
The former president of the (Catalan) Advisory Council for the National Transition was the one who orchestrated the reports on the so-called '(Catalan) State structures', but before court he denies any involvement in the (Catalan pro-independence) 'process'

The former magistrate of the Constitutional Court and former president of the Advisory Council for National Transition (CATN), Carles Viver Pi-Sunyer, received on Thursday the Gold Medal of the Generalitat (Catalan regional government), the highest honorary distinction awarded by the (Catalan) Government to personalities known for their public work . The jurist took this opportunity to predict the independence of Catalonia by ensuring that he sees it possible for the Catalan region to "successfully complete" its path to secession.

These statements are a far cry from what he declared during the oral hearing for his alleged involvement in the consultation (on the independence of Catalonia) on November 9, 2014, when he categorically denied his participation in the "participatory process" promoted by the former president of the Generalitat Artur Mas. "There is a legend about my work that does not correspond to reality," he argued before the courts to try to avoid any civil liability. In the same vein, Viver Pi-Sunyer downgraded the relevance of an organ which was created with great fanfare, the CATN, stating that "in reality he was just a legal advisor to the (Catalan) Government".

Architect of Independence

Nothing could be further from the truth. Members of the (Catalan) Government and leaders of the pro-independence process ("process") call it the main provider of legal material to bypass the Constitutional Court's resolutions and, in this way, try to "disconnect" (Catalonia) from the Spanish State.

The book El naufragio (Península, 2018) by the journalist Lola García. which relates the unravelling of the "procés "since its very start insists on the fundamental role this jurist plays in it .(Lola) deputy director of La Vanguardia explains that Viver Pi-Sunyer "is essential when it comes to facilitating the legal architecture of the steps that the independence movement is taking" and adds "Reluctant to give any interviews tries he tries to pass unnoticed, surely because he knows , like nobody, the legal consequences of the implementation of some of his recommendations"

(Catalan) State structures

Before the judge, Viver Pi-Sunyer also stated that his influence was less than what was proclaimed, but in fact he was responsible for designing the so-called State structures.

One of his duties as president of the CATN was to entrust all the Conselleries of the Generalitat (Ministerial departments of the Catalan regional government) the drafting of reports on how Catalonia would operate once it became independent from the rest of Spain. And these reports ranged from border control, to management of taxes or organ transplants.

Keep the dream alive

Viver Pi-Sunyer was also in charge of leaking to the press parts of these reports to feed the independence dream by giving the impression that all preparations were being made to have a new Catalan state after declaring independence.

All this work orchestrated by the key legal mind of the "process" materialized in the White Book for the national transition that presented the former Catalan President, Artur Mas in September of 2014. Viver Pi-Sunyer based himself on the historical precedent known as "the law to the law", designed by the president of the Francoist Cortes, Torcuato Fernández Miranda, to move from the dictatorial regime to democracy.

Back-tracking before the judge

When standing before the court, Viver Pi-Sunyer, however, asserted that he "was not doing any work on the defence of the Catalan State" and that "I never had the capacity to make any political or legal decisions".

But some documents seized demonstrate that he and others had drawn up a road map to achieve independence, but Viver Pi-Sunyer nuanced the information "There was not one single plan. There were many plans. There were several plans and each one defended his or hers "

Salary increase before 1-O (date of the illegal referendum for independence of Catalonia)

A month after the celebration of the 1-O, the (Catalan) Government raised the salary of several officials in senior positions of the Catalan Government among them, Viver Pi-Sunyer. He, who had also directed the Institut d'Estudis de l'Autogovern (Institut of Self-government Studies) received a monthly salary of 9,538 euros before the (illegal) referendum. The parliamentary group of the PSC (Catalan Socialists) demanded to the Catalan Government to justify in writing "to what concepts, works or merits" the salary increase responded to.

At his last public appearance he has returned to the source, feeding the independence dream, but denying everything in front of the courts.

ESPAÑOL

La hipocresía de Viver Pi-Sunyer: de negarlo todo ante el juez a avivar el sueño independentista

https://cronicaglobal.elespanol.com/politica/hipocresia-viver-pi-sunyer_213549_102.html

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The defences start to get nervous

EN ES

Pablo Ordaz
6/3/2019 El País

ENGLISH
The statements of Millo and Pérez de los Cobos question the dialogue and pacifist version of the secessionists

A colonel of the Civil Guard (Guardia Civil)* makes an imposing impression, even if he is in civilian clothes, without a tricorn and with a traveling bag in his hand. This is how Diego Pérez de los Cobos, - the head of the combined police forces deployed in Catalonia during the illegal referendum on October 1 -, appears before the court. The defendants watch him entering the Plenary Hall with a serious gesture, except for Jordi Cuixart, who always laughs full-throated, as if he did not know or did not care that the Prosecutor's Office asked for a 17-year prison sentence.
From his first answers, Pérez de los Cobos's witness statement is similar in two very important aspects to what Enric Millo, - the ex-delegate of the Government in Catalonia -, stated in the morning, and what José Antonio Nieto, - the former Secretary of State for Security-, had declared Monday afternoon: the three statements seem credible and the three of them put into question the pacifist and dialogue-driven discourse of the secessionist leaders on the basis of numerous data, dates and first-hand instances of personal experience. As a result, by the end of the morning and for the first time since the trial began, the defence lawyers start to look visibly nervous. To the point that, in the last moments of Millo's declaration, Judge Manuel Marchena has to cut short the interrogation of one of the defence lawyers:
- Let's see, Mr. Van den Eynde. This is a legal debate. It gives the impression that you are contradicting the witness. Do not use irony in that way.
In addition to Marchena, Judge Luciano Varela, the most senior of the seven members of the tribunal, who founded Judges for Democracy in 1983, is visibly upset with the improper attitude of some of the lawyers. Marchena's admonition - and the lunch hour, sacred in the Supreme Court- throws water into the fire, but Pérez de los Cobos’s accurate, serene declaration in the afternoon abound in the same sensation, without him staggering at any time before the logical traps that the defenders try on him: In the eve of October 1 those who sought a peaceful and dialogued solution before the imminent convocation of the illegal referendum were not precisely Carles Puigdemont and his counsellors.
Such an intention is rebutted by the account of the three witnesses of the Security Board meeting held in Barcelona on September 28 under Puigdemont’s presidency. A meeting that for José Antonio Nieto was "surreal", for Enric Millo "ludicrous" and for Diego Pérez de los Cobos "kafkian". Maybe the person who described it best was Nieto on Monday - "we were sitting at a table to prevent the referendum with those who had organized it for October 1st" -. However, Millo contributed in his statement personal details that caused a lot of damage to the defence strategy simply because, whilst Nieto has a Cordovan accent and Pérez de los Cobos is a civil guard, Millo is called Enric and, - as he emphasized -, he has lived in Catalonia all his life. He represents the part of Catalonia, that yes, which did not live those days in the avenues of independence euphoria, but in the alleys of anguish. The Catalonia of all those who opposed the secessionist drift. When the ex-delegate of the Government said that in Girona, - where he has lived 27 years -, there appeared a graffiti saying "Millo, death", a defence lawyer asked:
- Do you know who did it?
-I do not know who did it, but I know who did clean it up: it was my daughter.
There is a sentence that will not make it to any press headline, but which the ex-delegate of the Government repeated twice or thrice at different stages of his statement. The sentence is: "I left that meeting very worried". He refers to the meetings he had with president Carles Puigdemont, Vice President Oriol Junqueras or Home Affairs counsellor Joaquim Forn in order to find a legal alternative to the referendum and which always ended up crashing into a wall. "Their response was always the same," - Millo explains -, "the referendum was going to be held. They were not interested in anything else than having the referendum”.
It's already dark in the Villa de Paris square. Inside the Plenary Hall, Javier Melero, the defence's most seasoned lawyer, has tried unsuccessfully for three hours to find a hole to get to Pérez de los Cobos, but he cannot. The colonel of the Civil Guard, who has been trained in the fight against ETA but also in the advice of ministers of Home Affairs of both the PSOE and the PP, provides a perfect chronological account to support his thesis: the Mossos d'Esquadra favoured the referendum instead of preventing it. Each time the lawyer asks a question in the form of an arrow, the civil guard returns it with poison at the tip:
- Do you know how many complaints there are against police and civil guards for the charges of October 1?
-I have more than 100 dismissals and no convictions.
-And if you say that you were received in the polling stations with violence, is not it surprising that there were no arrests?
-I do not find it surprising. When in a given situation there comes about much higher violence than initially foreseen, the priority is to implement the mission, not to make arrests.
Melero does not know anymore what to ask. A young woman lawyer says something in his ear. In the end, he gives up.
-No more questions.
Pérez de los Cobos smiles.

* Note of the unofficial translator: The Guardia Civil is a military force charged with, a.o., police and safety duties under the authority of both the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Defence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Guard_%28Spain%29


ESPAÑOL

Las defensas empiezan a ponerse nerviosas

https://elpais.com/politica/2019/03/05/actualidad/1551818292_205209.html

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Procès des indépendantistes catalans: non, l’Espagne n’est pas une dictature!

FR

Alfonso Valero
05/03/2019 LE SOIR








FRANCAIS
Les séparatistes catalans ne sont pas jugés pour avoir voté lors du référendum sur l’indépendance, mais pour avoir enfreint la légalité constitutionnelle et essayé de la supplanter par une législation alternative et illégitime, estime l’auteur de cette carte blanche.

Comme les lecteurs de ce journal le savent, depuis le 12 février se déroule le procès de douze des leaders séparatistes catalans. Il ne s´agit pas d´un procès de tous les leaders séparatistes, ni d´un procès de tous les accusés puisqu´il y en a sept en fuite. Il est nécessaire d’insister sur ce point car en Espagne il y a beaucoup de personnes (élues ou pas) qui défendent la sécession d´une part du territoire national et qui ne sont ni poursuivies en justice ni menées devant les tribunaux puisqu’en Espagne, personne n´est jugé à cause de ses opinions politiques. Il est également important de rappeler que Carles Puigdemont, Antoni Comin, Meritxell Serret, Anna Gabriel, Marta Rovira et Clara Ponsatí, auteurs des mêmes faits jugés maintenant par la Cour Suprême espagnole, ont fui l´Espagne, ce qui prouve qu’il existait bien un risque de fuite des autres poursuivis. Carles Puigdemont, par exemple, demeure à Waterloo d´où il dirige toute sa propagande sécessionniste.

Un cliché démenti par les chiffres

Cet article n´a pas pour but de convaincre les lecteurs sur le bien-fondé de l’une ou l´autre position. Il essaie tout simplement d´expliquer la procédure pénale devant la Cour Suprême, afin que chacun puisse se faire sa propre opinion.

LIRE AUSSI

Carte blanche: «Catalogne, un procès contre la démocratie»

Mesdames et Messieurs, Franco est bien mort. L´une des accusations les plus fréquentes contre la jeune démocratie espagnole est que l’héritage de Franco reste vivant. Cette affirmation est un cliché du passé qui est démenti par la pleine intégration de l´Espagne dans tous les organismes internationaux qui exigent une démocratie pleine, tels que l’Union européenne (depuis 1986) et le Conseil de l´Europe, ainsi que la Cour européenne des Droits de l’Homme. D’après le Rapport Annuel 2018 de la Cour européenne des Droits de l´Homme, l´Espagne est l´un des pays les moins convoqués devant sa Cour (0,13 requête pour 10.000 habitants, face à 0,16 pour la Belgique et 0,52 en moyenne) et ayant le moins de condamnations (167 arrêts depuis 1959, face aux 252 arrêts pour la Belgique pendant la même période). De plus, d´après l´Economist Intelligence Unit appartenant au journal The Economist, l´Espagne est depuis quelques années l´une des vingt démocraties pleines du monde.

LIRE AUSSI

La justice espagnole sur le banc des accusés au procès des indépendantistes

La démocratie espagnole garantit même le droit d´activisme contre son intégrité territoriale. Grâce à ça, M. Torra, Président de la Région Autonome de Catalogne, put assister à ce procès devant la Cour Suprême et soutenir ensuite des positions séparatistes, comme il le fait depuis des années. En réalité, les vestiges du fascisme se retrouvent plutôt dans le nationalisme catalan. Rappelez-vous simplement que M. Torra est un leader politique suprémaciste et xénophobe qui a rendu hommage à plusieurs reprises aux frères Badia, créateurs des années trente du XXe siècle d´un mouvement inspiré du fascisme italien.

Rébellion et violence

Une autre erreur fréquente consiste à dire qu´en Catalogne il n’y a pas eu de rébellion parce qu´il n´y a pas eu d’actes de violence, puisque voter est un acte pacifique. À vrai dire, on ne juge pas ces douze séparatistes pour avoir voté, puisqu’en effet cela ne représente pas un acte violent. On les juge pour avoir enfreint la légalité constitutionnelle et essayé de la supplanter par une législation alternative et illégitime ; pour avoir entravé, à l´aide de la force physique, l´enquête judiciaire sur le financement du référendum illégal ; pour avoir employé la police régionale pour empêcher l´action de la police nationale qui, en suivant les instructions du juge compétent, essayait d´empêcher le référendum illégal, ainsi que pour avoir réalisé ledit référendum en pleine connaissance des conséquences violentes qui pourraient s´en suivre, comme ce fut le cas. En effet, beaucoup de preuves montrent des nationalistes désireux de déclencher un processus de violence dans l´espoir d´internationaliser la situation.

LIRE AUSSI

Espagne: un procès exceptionnel très politiqueDes subventions sujettes à caution

Enfin, certains disent qu’Omnium Cultural, Assemblea Nacional Catalana et d´autres groupes nationalistes sont des mouvements civiques à but non lucratif. Si nous considérons le motif du profit comme une entité faisant partie du marché libre, nous acceptons que ces organisations n´ont pas de but lucratif. Mais il faut rappeler que ce sont des organisations puissamment subventionnées par l´argent du contribuable, qui, comme le révèle l´enquête judiciaire, n´a pas été destiné à des fins publiques. Par exemple, l’organisation Omnium Cultural a reçu environ dix millions d’euros dans les dix dernières années. On se concentre sur Omnium parce qu´elle fut créée pendant l’époque de Franco, en 1961. Elle fut déclarée illégale entre 1963 et 1967, mais depuis elle a repris ses activités jusqu´à nos jours. Bien entendu Omnium Cultural n´est pas un « héritage franquiste », mais au long de ces vingt dernières années, elle a quitté son rôle de promotion de la culture catalane pour devenir une organisation qui milite pour le séparatisme.

Une procédure transparente

En conclusion, toute procédure judiciaire doit pouvoir faire l´objet d´un suivi et d´une évaluation, y compris celle concernant les douze séparatistes catalans. Toutes les séances de la Cour Suprême sont publiques dans le sens le plus vaste possible, puisqu´elles peuvent être suivies en direct par internet en streaming, ce qui est sans précédent dans n´importe quelle démocratie du monde. Cependant, les sentiments que cette procédure peut éventuellement éveiller ne devraient pas être extrapolés de façon paresseuse et ignorante à la démocratie espagnole, qui fait preuve de fermeté justement en se défendant de ses ennemis sur la base d´un procès équitable et avec toutes les garanties procédurales d´un État de droit.

Comme les lecteurs de ce journal le savent, depuis le 12 février se déroule le procès de douze des leaders séparatistes catalans. Il ne s´agit pas d´un procès de tous les leaders séparatistes, ni d´un procès de tous les accusés puisqu´il y en a sept en fuite. Il est nécessaire d’insister sur ce point car en Espagne il y a beaucoup de personnes (élues ou pas) qui défendent la sécession d´une part du territoire national et qui ne sont ni poursuivies en justice ni menées devant les tribunaux puisqu’en Espagne, personne n´est jugé à cause de ses opinions politiques. Il est également important de rappeler que Carles Puigdemont, Antoni Comin, Meritxell Serret, Anna Gabriel, Marta Rovira et Clara Ponsatí, auteurs des mêmes faits jugés maintenant par la Cour Suprême espagnole, ont fui l´Espagne, ce qui prouve qu’il existait bien un risque de fuite des autres poursuivis. Carles Puigdemont, par exemple, demeure à Waterloo d´où il dirige toute sa propagande sécessionniste.

Un cliché démenti par les chiffres

Cet article n´a pas pour but de convaincre les lecteurs sur le bien-fondé de l’une ou l´autre position. Il essaie tout simplement d´expliquer la procédure pénale devant la Cour Suprême, afin que chacun puisse se faire sa propre opinion.

LIRE AUSSI

Carte blanche: «Catalogne, un procès contre la démocratie»

Mesdames et Messieurs, Franco est bien mort. L´une des accusations les plus fréquentes contre la jeune démocratie espagnole est que l’héritage de Franco reste vivant. Cette affirmation est un cliché du passé qui est démenti par la pleine intégration de l´Espagne dans tous les organismes internationaux qui exigent une démocratie pleine, tels que l’Union européenne (depuis 1986) et le Conseil de l´Europe, ainsi que la Cour européenne des Droits de l’Homme. D’après le Rapport Annuel 2018 de la Cour européenne des Droits de l´Homme, l´Espagne est l´un des pays les moins convoqués devant sa Cour (0,13 requête pour 10.000 habitants, face à 0,16 pour la Belgique et 0,52 en moyenne) et ayant le moins de condamnations (167 arrêts depuis 1959, face aux 252 arrêts pour la Belgique pendant la même période). De plus, d´après l´Economist Intelligence Unit appartenant au journal The Economist, l´Espagne est depuis quelques années l´une des vingt démocraties pleines du monde.

LIRE AUSSI

La justice espagnole sur le banc des accusés au procès des indépendantistes

La démocratie espagnole garantit même le droit d´activisme contre son intégrité territoriale. Grâce à ça, M. Torra, Président de la Région Autonome de Catalogne, put assister à ce procès devant la Cour Suprême et soutenir ensuite des positions séparatistes, comme il le fait depuis des années. En réalité, les vestiges du fascisme se retrouvent plutôt dans le nationalisme catalan. Rappelez-vous simplement que M. Torra est un leader politique suprémaciste et xénophobe qui a rendu hommage à plusieurs reprises aux frères Badia, créateurs des années trente du XXe siècle d´un mouvement inspiré du fascisme italien.

Rébellion et violence

Une autre erreur fréquente consiste à dire qu´en Catalogne il n’y a pas eu de rébellion parce qu´il n´y a pas eu d’actes de violence, puisque voter est un acte pacifique. À vrai dire, on ne juge pas ces douze séparatistes pour avoir voté, puisqu’en effet cela ne représente pas un acte violent. On les juge pour avoir enfreint la légalité constitutionnelle et essayé de la supplanter par une législation alternative et illégitime ; pour avoir entravé, à l´aide de la force physique, l´enquête judiciaire sur le financement du référendum illégal ; pour avoir employé la police régionale pour empêcher l´action de la police nationale qui, en suivant les instructions du juge compétent, essayait d´empêcher le référendum illégal, ainsi que pour avoir réalisé ledit référendum en pleine connaissance des conséquences violentes qui pourraient s´en suivre, comme ce fut le cas. En effet, beaucoup de preuves montrent des nationalistes désireux de déclencher un processus de violence dans l´espoir d´internationaliser la situation.

LIRE AUSSI

Espagne: un procès exceptionnel très politiqueDes subventions sujettes à caution

Enfin, certains disent qu’Omnium Cultural, Assemblea Nacional Catalana et d´autres groupes nationalistes sont des mouvements civiques à but non lucratif. Si nous considérons le motif du profit comme une entité faisant partie du marché libre, nous acceptons que ces organisations n´ont pas de but lucratif. Mais il faut rappeler que ce sont des organisations puissamment subventionnées par l´argent du contribuable, qui, comme le révèle l´enquête judiciaire, n´a pas été destiné à des fins publiques. Par exemple, l’organisation Omnium Cultural a reçu environ dix millions d’euros dans les dix dernières années. On se concentre sur Omnium parce qu´elle fut créée pendant l’époque de Franco, en 1961. Elle fut déclarée illégale entre 1963 et 1967, mais depuis elle a repris ses activités jusqu´à nos jours. Bien entendu Omnium Cultural n´est pas un « héritage franquiste », mais au long de ces vingt dernières années, elle a quitté son rôle de promotion de la culture catalane pour devenir une organisation qui milite pour le séparatisme.

Une procédure transparente

En conclusion, toute procédure judiciaire doit pouvoir faire l´objet d´un suivi et d´une évaluation, y compris celle concernant les douze séparatistes catalans. Toutes les séances de la Cour Suprême sont publiques dans le sens le plus vaste possible, puisqu´elles peuvent être suivies en direct par internet en streaming, ce qui est sans précédent dans n´importe quelle démocratie du monde. Cependant, les sentiments que cette procédure peut éventuellement éveiller ne devraient pas être extrapolés de façon paresseuse et ignorante à la démocratie espagnole, qui fait preuve de fermeté justement en se défendant de ses ennemis sur la base d´un procès équitable et avec toutes les garanties procédurales d´un État de droit.

https://plus.lesoir.be/210191/article/2019-03-05/proces-des-independantistes-catalans-non-lespagne-nest-pas-une-dictature

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The German giant that betrayed Spain: the hidden pact of T-Systems with Puigdemont

 

José María Olmo

Beatriz Parera

The Civil Guard accredits the key role of the multinational. 

The Civil Guard accuses T-Systems, with 31.9% of its capital in the hands of the German State, of playing a decisive role in the 1-O and in the creation of the structures of independent Catalonia

The company T-Systems, belonging to the giant Deutsche Telekom, whose 31.89% is in the hands of the German State, drew an internal strategy to collaborate with the Government of Carles Puigdemont in the development of the so-called State structures of the independent Catalonia. Managers of the multinational held secret meetings with leaders of the Generalitat to coordinate the start-up of the census of Catalans abroad for the 1-O, computer applications for the Mossos d'Esquadra to supervise the laws that would be in force after the disconnection and the digital structure that would allow the completely autonomous operation of the new Catalan Treasury, among other solutions, according to a new report from the Civil Guard to which El Confidencial has had access.

Neither the investigations opened against the Catalan Executive on account of the referendum nor the warnings that the Judiciary sent directly to T-Systems to remind it that some adjudications could go beyond the statutory framework prevented the German company from continuing to lend decisive support to the sovereignty road map. Researchers have reached this conclusion after analyzing the abundant documentation on the 'procés' found in September 2017 at the headquarters of T-Systems in Spain, located on Sancho de Avila Street in Barcelona. Emails and confidential reports would prove that, at least since 2014, the company knew the plans of the secessionist parties and articulated internal protocols to cooperate intensively with them without being discovered.

 

T-Systems devised an internal strategy in 2015 to position itself consciously on the side of the independence parties and collaborate in the plans to break with the rest of Spain. (Click here to access the full report)


According to the investigations of the Armed Institute, at least a dozen employees of T-Systems would have participated in the development of the infrastructure of the Catalan Republic. The agents highlight the role of Rosa María Rodríguez Curto, the director in charge of relations with the Generalitat, who was detained in the Anubis operation along with a dozen other high-ranking officials of the regional administration. On her working table was found a 20-page report printed on both sides entitled "Generalitat de Catalunya -Account Plan- Analysis of political ideals and institutional positioning"; in this document, in addition to examining the proposals of the parties that defended unilateral independence and dissecting their respective strategies to achieve it, they fixed the position that T-Systems should adopt in a conflict that this process would necessarily generate with the State.

The "Action Plan" to help the Government

The report, which probably would have been compiled in 2015, makes clear on which side of the line T-Systems was placed. Near the end of the document, under a heading called "Plan of Action", the German multinational specified that it was committed to creating a 'White Paper' that would summarize the contribution of the company to the development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) of the Generalitat and condensed how they could continue with this collaboration in the future. Only between 2012 and 2016, the governments of Artur Mas granted contracts to T-Systems for 310 million euros, becoming one of the main customers of the subsidiary in Spain of the historic German telephone company, participated in a more than considerable way by the German state (it controls 14.48% of its capital directly and another 17.41% through the public bank KfW).

In order not to lose this enormous source of income or even increase it, the T-Systems report concluded that the firm had to activate a "shock plan detailing actions" to achieve the "materialization of the concrete bet for the process of national constitution" and the "change of model", an euphemism for the definitive rupture of Catalonia with the rest of Spain. The company considered that this scenario was a great opportunity to opt for strategic projects linked to independence, such as the development of the "Public Treasury", "Social Security", the "Catalan DNI", the "preparation of Data Bases for an operational electoral system" and the creation of an "own [telephone] operator (Euskaltel type)", specified the report in another chapter. These were not the only contracts that interested the multinational. Other emails reveal that T-Systems also participated in the development of a police 'software' so that the Mossos d'Esquadra could monitor compliance with the laws of the new State and a second intelligence 'software' more oriented to Cesicat, an agency of security that was to be the embryo of the Catalan CNI.

"Intentionality to participate in the 'procés'"

"From the analysis of these documents," the Civil Guard notes in its report, "it can be concluded that T-Systems had clear, precise and unambiguous knowledge of the political project of the Catalan autonomous government since, at least, the year 2015, having carried out a detailed study of the road map that it had planned to follow, the State Structures that it wanted to create and the ICT needs that all this would entail. Once this study was done, it defined the strategy that, as an ICT company, it should try just to continue to be the reference of the Generalitat in this process, with the volume of business that all this entailed". "There is no doubt," the researchers add, "of the intentionality of T-Systems to participate in the 'procés', not only since that precise moment, but also previously it would have done so, given that, otherwise, it is supposed that it would not obtain any credibility before the corresponding organisms of the Generalitat if previously it had not made works in that very sense".

One of those previous works that made T-Systems the technological head of the Government was the creation of the registry of Catalans abroad for the first independence referendum of 2014, promoted by Artur Mas, an episode that is also being investigated now by the Civil Guard. Specifically, the German firm was commissioned to launch this application because the Government wanted to facilitate the vote to citizens who lived outside the community.

The report of the Civil Guard reveals that T-Systems collaborated in the development of the registration of Catalans abroad, on the 1-O website itself and on the official page of the National Pact for the Referendum, in the image above, which was made public in January 2017. (Click here to access the full report)

Researchers have now found indications that this program, which then did cost 527,685 euros, was updated several times by T-Systems throughout 2017 to make it the registry of Catalans abroad who wanted to vote on 1-O. The changes involved an additional cost of 94,253 euros, according to the report of the Armed Institute, which has just been sent to the Court of Instruction number 13 in Barcelona, where the investigations against the political leaders of the Generalitat of second level have been centralized. They face the crimes of embezzlement, disobedience and sedition.

Collaboration until the last moment

T-Systems decided to collaborate with the Generalitat to develop the State’s own competences, such as the National Identity Card, Social Security, the Tax Agency and, even, databases to set up a completely autonomous electoral system. (Click here to access the document in full size)

The Civil Guard intervened during the investigation dozens of telephone conversations that demonstrate the enormous degree of affinity that existed until the last moment between the high-ranking officers of the Generalitat responsible for the consultation and the directors of T-Systems, even though the company already knew that the tasks they were implementing were illegal. Only in relation to the 1-O, in addition to the census of Catalans abroad, the subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom was also responsible for developing the page of the National Pact for the Referendum - which served to launch the convocation definitively in January 2017- and made changes in the official website of the consultation just a few days before it was held, when the State Security Forces had already begun to mobilize to try to overthrow it.

After the publication in the first weeks of 2017 of news that alerted about Puigdemont's plans to hold a consultation not agreed upon and start up the Treasury, the general director of T-Systems in Spain, José Manuel Desco, wrote an email to Rosa María Rodríguez to ask for a "detailed report" on all the work they were doing for the Catalan tax authorities. It is unknown if the manager even sent the report to his superior, but the company maintained its collaboration with the 'procés' during the following months as if nothing had happened. A large group of T-Systems employees continued to focus on these projects, throwing in hundreds of extra hours and working even on weekends, as the company's internal communications clearly reveal.

The one that did not continue was Desco, despite the fact that since 2015 he had also shown a complete harmony with the objectives set by the Generalitat. An e-mail from July of that year proves that he was already informed of the infrastructures that the Government of Artur Mas wanted to set up. However, in May 2017, Desco was relieved of the general management of the company and provisionally replaced by the then financial director, Osmar Polo.

Secret meeting in Barcelona

Few weeks after that change in the top of T-Systems in Spain, the general director of this division of Deutsche Telekom, Reinhard Clemens, traveled from Germany to Barcelona to meet secretly with Puigdemont himself, as revealed to El Confidencial sources close to the inquiries. Polo also attended that meeting.

An internal email from T-Systems shows that the general director of the company was already aware in July 2015 that they were collaborating in the creation of the main state structures of independent Catalonia. (Click here to see the document in full size)

There is no data on the content of the meeting, but the facts indicate that it must have been very fruitful. In July 2017, Polo was directly warned by the Judicial Police that, "in the event that the company T-Systems received some contract from the Generalitat for the realization of any application or computer project that was related to the preparation of the illegal referendum on October 1, it had the obligation to communicate immediately". But the German multinational never paralyzed nor warned of anything. Not even after the referendum.

The high-rank officer is still in the company

T-Systems continues being one of the main suppliers of the Generalitat. And, paradoxically, its commitment to the independence of Catalonia has not prevented it from retaining dozens of contracts in the rest of Spain, the territory from which the firm sought to separate. Polo, already consolidated as CEO of T-Systems Iberia, said in an interview in March 2018 that the ‘procés’ has damaged “its image, not its business". "There have been many falsehoods and there have been many misrepresentations, and that has hurt us a lot; there have been clients asking us what we have done," he lamented in statements collected by 'Cinco Días'. "We have never collaborated with the 1-O", he dared to say then.

This Friday, however, the company declined to comment on El Confidencial's information. "T-Systems does not comment on legal actions or investigations so as not to interfere in ongoing processes. The company reiterates that each and every one of its actions and those of its directors are guided by compliance with current regulations and the monitoring of the practices of Good Corporate Governance and Transparency". Rosa María Rodríguez Curto continues to work in the company, despite the accusations she faces. She holds the position of vice president of sales and forms part of the company's Management Committee of the company.

https://www.elconfidencial.com/espana/2019-03-03/t-systems-gigante-aleman-traiciono-espana-puigdemont-independencia-cataluna_1858194/

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