Article by Iu Forn: "The CC now allows Puigdemont to be president" (24 JUN 2018)

My unofficial translation into English of Iu Forn's aricle "El TC permet ara a Puigdemont ser president" (El Nacional, 24 June 2018)

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Original text: https://www.elnacional.cat/ca/opinio/el-tc-permet-ara-a-puigdemont-ser-president_281577_102.html

The CC now allows Puigdemont to be president

Iu Forn

Barcelona. Sunday, June 24, 2018

   

Here the illegalities that have been committed in recent months are taking place before our very eyes with limitless joy. And nothing happens. Nothing whatsoever. The fact is, they aren't news anymore.

Do you remember when on January 27 Carles Puigdemont was due to be elected president of the Generalitat? At that time, the discussion was whether the applicant should attend the penary in person or could participate telematically from Belgium. Until the Constitutional Court (CC), at a meeting held on a Saturday and as a result of an appeal filed by the Government, decided by the majority of eleven of the twelve judges to allow the investiture, yes, but if the president came in person and with  judge Llarena's authorization. And, of course, to come in person meant to be arrested and imprisoned.

That is why the then Zoido minister (even now they could prick me and I wouldn't bleed a drop when I think how this individual could become the Interior Minister of the Kingdom of Spain) said that the police and the Guardia Civil were monitoring "in a very intense way "all the routes into Catalonia so that Puigdemont could not get in "by helicopter, lightweight plane or boat". And for that reason at the entrance of the Parliament they even searched Xavier Domènech's taxi's boot.

But the Constitutional Court also said on that day that the plenary session was suspended and warned Speaker Torrent and the Bureau that if they did not abide by the suspension they would incur penalties. And this, in spite of two reports, by the Council of State and the TC's legal service, that said that the nomination could not be challenged before the plenary session. Basically, because you cannot fine someone for skipping a traffic light when they haven't yet got in their car.

So, and summarizing, the Constitutional Court prevented, on a provisional basis, the investiture of Carles Puigdemont, sweeping aside the legal recommendations and threatening the democratic representatives elected by the Catalans with jail.

Five months later, and on the verge of using up the time limit it had to make public its final decision, the CC has spoken. And do you know what it said? It declares "the loss of the object of the incident on the maintenance or raising of the resolution of the President of the Parliament on January 22, 2018, in which he proposed to invest as President Carles Puigdemont" and understands that "Concurrent circumstances have now made the decisions challenged in this constitutional process lose their effectiveness and, as a result, they cannot be applied." [1]

This in translation means that the CC now allows Carles Puigdemont to stand five months ago as a candidate to the president of the Generalitat electronically from Belgium. But, alas, because he is no longer a candidate, because, since they did not allow him to appear, another candidate was chosen, then let's drop the subject, what the heck, and, as the poet said, "Fuck you".

And, listen, the most sensational of all is that nothing has happened. Because nothing ever happens here. And, in fact, why should anything happen in a place where the law is applied with criteria that you can never tell whether they are more arbitrary or political?

Here a judge keeps nine people accused of a criminal offence that has only existed in his imagination and in reports based on false information created by those who should be protecting us from the bad guys.

Here a judge keeps nine people in provisional jail accused of a crime that has been denied by the Spanish finance minister.

Here is the obligation to accept and publish the Government appointed by the President of the Generalitat and, if the State does not feel like complying, it doesn't, and that's that. And this Government is not that one.

These things and others happen here, and nothing happens here. Because nothing ever happens here.



[1] = Auto 68/2018, de 20 de junio de 2018. Impugnación de disposiciones autonómicas 492-2018. Declara la pérdida de objeto del incidente de suspensión planteado en la impugnación de disposiciones autonómicas 492-2018, planteada por el Gobierno de la Nación en relación con diversas resoluciones del Presidente del Parlamento de Cataluña. http://hj.tribunalconstitucional.es/es/Resolucion/Show/25691