The paths to free the Catalan political prisoners remain blocked

BarcelonaPedro Sánchez arrived at the Moncloa with a promise to "de-judicialise" Catalan politics as a first step to resolving the conflict. "We have to leave behind the judicialisation. We need to restart", he said in his investiture speech on January 4 last year. A message addressed to the pro-independence movement in which there were those who read between the lines his commitment to free the nine political prisoners, who at this point have been behind bars for more than three years. Even so, more than a year after the PSOE and Unidas Podemos reached the government, all the paths to release the prisoners are completely blocked.

It was not until September 28, 2020 that the Ministry of Justice announced that it had begun to process requests for pardon for the prisoners. It had already been nine months since the first request, which had come from the hand of the lawyer Rafael Jufresa in December 2019 and which had been joined later by those of the UGT for Dolors Bassa, that of the former presidents of the Parliament for Carme Forcadell and also that of the Lliga Democràtica. After having received the documents from the prisons, until December the Supreme Court did not ask the Prosecutor's Office for the report, and a few days later it made public the letter in which it opposed the pardons. On Tuesday, the State Attorney's Office sent its report - without taking a stance on the suitability or otherwise of granting the pardon -, the last document that the court needed to issue its verdict.

The decision is now in the hands of the high court, which has to send its non-binding position to the Spanish government. From the PSOE they insist that the pardons are following their course without delay. On Monday the Minister of Territorial Policy and Public Administration, Miquel Iceta, stated in an interview to La Vanguardia in which he assured that the Madrid elections on May 4 would not influence the calendar. However, from Unidas Podemos, the president of the group in Parliament, Jaume Asens, has accused several times the court of Manuel Marchena of intentionally delaying the processing of the pardons.

Precisely Asens is the architect of another of the paths that would free the prisoners: the reform of the crime of sedition. This modification only depends on the will of the Spanish government to move it forward. Unidas Podemos put on the table of the Minister of Justice his proposal a few months ago, but the meetings with Juan Carlos Campo have been scarce. Before the Madrid elections were called, a meeting was scheduled between Campo and Asens to address the issue, but it was not done. Sources of Unidas Podemos do not trust that the ministry will work on it until after 4-M and regret the delay. "There is no news of when it will go to the council of ministers", sources in the Ministry of Justice tell the ARA, who do not specify when Campo will present his proposal.

Second attempt at amnesty

The third path that the pro-independence movement wanted to open up a few weeks ago was terminated in a matter of days. The PSOE aligned itself with the PP and Vox and the Parliamentary bureau rejected to process the law of amnesty that the pro-independence groups had put forward. In spite of everything, the promoters of the regulation assure that they will try again to move the law proposal forward through the right to petition, although they still do not have a date. The platform Amnistia i Llibertat, together with Òmnium, continues collecting signatures throughout the territory and plans to make a massive collection on April 10.