Santos Cerdán could be representing (if the conditional sentence ends up being unnecessary, the courts will have to prove it) the scandalous and at the same time old episode of economic corruption, when someone sees millions passing by and believes they've found a way to grease their fingers, themselves, the party, or both, until they finally get caught. For now, the indications have been enough to keep Pedro Sánchez hanging by a thread. His criteria in choosing organization secretaries is dubious, to say the least, and if solid evidence of illegal financing appears, the thread will break.

From the 19th century to the present day, a serious lack of a genuinely "liberal" political culture has been evident in Spain, especially in the institutions of the judicial leadership. The journey begins with the Cadiz Constitution of 1812, which does not even mention the judiciary, conceived as a subsidiary body of the executive branch. Under Franco's regime, the courts constituted the legal arm of the dictatorship. In fact, the judges of the highest institutions have been more loyal to the goals of the permanence of the State (unity and monarchy) than to the goals of political liberalism and the rule of law (individual and collective rights and freedoms, judicial impartiality, separation of powers).

One of the most shocking aspects of the latest CIS survey is that the judiciary is the second-highest-rated Spanish institution, and that all the suspicions about its lack of neutrality are concentrated on its actions regarding political parties. We learned this precisely the same week that the Supreme Court denied, first, amnesty to Carles Puigdemont, delusionally claiming that he obtained a "personal benefit of a financial nature" from the trial, and that this fits in a very twisted way within the disgraceful and avoidable exception provided for by the amnesty law. Second, the same high court has ruled against a pardon for Oriol Junqueras, which could exonerate him from his disqualification from office because, in the opinion of such learned judges, and contrary to the opinion of the Prosecutor's Office, that would be tantamount to replacing the partial and irrevocable pardon granted for another prison sentence for his 1870 prison term.

Justice is the last ratio, the last argument, of the democratic system. It is the place where citizens, companies or other agents turn when they feel mistreated or are victims of abuse or aggression. We expect reparation from justice and, also, punishment for the guilty. Justice is fundamental to give the system meaning. If there is no justice, there is no democracy. And if it works poorly or defectively, it is the whole that is irremediably delegitimized. It is democracy that is devalued in the eyes of the people. It is precisely for this reason, because of the fundamental importance that, in democratic terms, but also moral, justice has, that I have never understood the blatant abandonment to which Spain has been subjected.

Pablo Llarena is back on the charge in Europe. After more than three years of fiascos due to the refusal of several European courts to grant the extradition of the exiles of the Independence bid through Euro-orders presented by the Supreme Court, Llarena, who is in charge of the case against the independence movement, seems determined to play it out before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Llarena has finally expressed his willingness to transfer to the highest EU judicial instance a pre-trial question to clarify the limits of the state courts at the time of rejecting the euro-orders. It is, therefore, to finally set a general position. The Belgian refusal to send to Spain Catalan ex Minister of Culture Lluís Puig Gordi has the last straw for Llarena who has never given his arm to twist before the refusal of his European colleagues, whom he has not hesitated to accuse of disloyalty. In addition, despite the fact that there is still a lot to be decided, he has also wanted to take advantage of the decision of the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament in favour of withdrawing Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín and Clara Ponsatí's immunity.

RIDICULE The epidemiological situation in Catalonia - with all its derivatives: welfare, schooling, socioeconomic - is no worse, and in some respects even better, than in Spain as a whole. But what the Catalan government does, or the local councils do, is of no use; because the idea that this country of ours is ungovernable and does not deserve even the misery of autonomy is well-established. All we have to do is to listen to the people of order, with the choral support of those who quote Tarradellas every day: "In politics you can do anything but make a fool of yourself". A quote that in the Spanish case is sadly true: the episode of Quim Torra's banner, for some, is more scandalous than the fact that the Electoral Board dismissed him, not caring about what the electoral vote wanted. For a certain Catalonia, ridicule cannot be tolerated, but the hijacking of democracy is tolerable. This is how it is.