Cuixart presents the first appeal to Europe against the Supreme Court sentence

The defense of Jordi Cuixart, president of Òmnium Cultural, has handed over this Wednesday the appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg against the sentence of the Catalan independence bid, which has him now in prison. The legal team of the maximum leader of the entity has entered it to register personally in Strasbourg a day after knowing the full sentence and the dissenting opinions of the Constitutional Court. In fact, Cuixart himself assured this Tuesday on Twitter that this would be the next step. "Not a step back and see you in Strasbourg!" he tweeted. This Thursday it is expected that the former MP Jordi Turull also present his appeal to the same European court.

Cuixart's appeal, according to Òmnium in a note distributed after TV3 has advanced the appeal, has been registered in Catalan and with all the documentation for admission: about sixty reports that occupy a total of 2,009 pages. Among the documents attached are all the pronouncements of international organisations that, according to Òmnium, throughout the more than 3 and a half years of imprisonment of the president of Òmnium have denounced his situation and have called for his release, as well as some of the resolutions issued by other European courts. Òmnium has said that it will explain the content of this appeal in a press conference next Tuesday.

The announcement of the appeal comes the day after, following the detail of the Constitutional Court's ruling and the private votes of two magistrates of the court, who considered the sentence to Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart "disproportionate", given that they are social leaders who must be guaranteed the right to assembly. The members of the Constitutional Court Juan Antonio Xiol and Maria Luisa Balaguer issued a private vote in which they agree with the position regarding the resources of Jordi Turull and Josep Rull but add that in the case of the 'Jordis' has been given a "severe" criminal response to the exercise of the fundamental right of assembly and has caused "an undesired effect of discouragement on it". They add that a different judgment could have been made "more in accordance with an interpretation evolved and consistent with that of the European Court of Human Rights".

The vice-president of the organisation, Marcel Mauri, considered shortly after learning of the details of the individual votes that "the division" of the Constitutional Court in the appeals of the political prisoners "predicts the defeat" of Spain in Strasbourg. According to Òmnium, the individual votes "clearly admit" the democratic deficits of the state and show the "cracks" in its "repressive strategy". "The unity of Spain cannot be used as a limit when it comes to exercising fundamental rights", said Mauri, and insisted that the pro-independence movement has "every right to demonstrate to demand the exercise of the right to self-determination". "It is not a crime and today they admit it from within the Constitutional Court itself, invoking previous rulings by the European Court of Human Rights", the vice-president of Òmnium stressed.