The Supreme Court sentences Nuet to eight months of disqualification for disobedience

The Supreme Court has sentenced Joan Josep Nuet to eight months of disqualification and to pay 12,000 euros in fines for a crime of disobedience for allowing the processing of the disconnection laws when he was a member of the Parliamentary bureau in 2017. The decision means that Nuet, an ERC MP in Parliament, will have to leave the seat this legislature. In the sentence, the judges recognize that Nuet "sought to establish points of union and connection between two large strongly opposed groups", but argue that "either he complied or disobeyed, he had no other alternative, and he chose to disobey".

The Supreme Court admits that "his parliamentary offices and those of the political group to which he belonged managed, with compromise amendments, to bring about agreements that allowed some to advance their positions, and the others to channel the debates within the framework of the Constitution". Be that as it may, the members of the court consider that this does not free him from being condemned because he facilitated the processing of the laws of disconnection, despite the warning of the Constitutional, which warned the bureau of the Parliament that its obligation was to prevent or paralyse initiatives that directly or indirectly meant taking steps towards independence. "The mandate was clear, precise, and the accused had highly qualified sources of knowledge to accommodate his conduct to the requirements set forth. His disobedience was, therefore, conscious and voluntary", say the judges, adding that "he did not obey in the terms that were required of him".

In this sense, the verdict recalls that Nuet, as a member of the bureau, "voted in favor of the processing of the bill" of the referendum "disobeying the obligations imposed by the Constitutional Court, the competent body". "The accused voted in favor of its admission to the proceedings despite the warnings of the lawyers, and it is also recorded that the same day he voted against three reconsiderations formulated by three parliamentary groups that requested the inadmissibility to the law proceedings", adds the sentence.

The Supreme Court rejects the arguments of the defense that Nuet acted in the exercise of his functions as an MP and member of the bureau, because in his understanding "parliamentary inviolability" is limited to ensuring freedom of expression and argumentation, but does not cover "functions of a governmental nature and organization of parliamentary work" such as those made by the Parliamentary bureau.

Sentence lower than requested by the prosecution

The sentence of eight months is less than what was requested by the accusations because both the Prosecutor's Office and the State Attorney's Office demanded that he be disqualified for twice as long, specifically one year and four months in total. The judges understand that he disobeyed the Constitutional Court but less often and with less intensity than his colleagues at the bureau, also convicted by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC).

During the trial, which took place on March 24 and 25, Nuet refuted that his aim was to channel through constitutional procedures the proposals made by the pro-independence parties and distanced himself from all of them. In this sense, addressing the court in the last turn to speak, he said: "We felt a bit like blue helmets, we were trying to save a situation so that the blood would not reach the river and we would not find ourselves in an irreversible situation".

He also recalled that he voted in favor of the investiture of Pedro Sánchez and the last general budgets of the State. Despite the plea, both the Prosecutor's Office and the State Attorney's Office maintained the accusations of one year and four months of disqualification for an alleged crime of disobedience - four months less than the pro-independence members of the bureau, judged in the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) for having abstained - as well as a 24,000 euro fine.