So far, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has been overturning all resources of the independence movement that has arrived. This Thursday was no exception: Strasbourg concluded that Spain did not violate the political rights of Oriol Junqueras, Jordi Sánchez, and Jordi Turull when it prevented them from exercising their rights as members of parliament during their pretrial detention, when they were elected to the Catalan Parliament in the 2017 elections. The Court found no violation of their right to free elections or their right to liberty and, therefore, upheld the limitation of their rights that resulted from their deprivation of liberty ordered by the Supreme Court. In its opinion, the Spanish high court sufficiently justified the deprivation of liberty to "preserve the constitutional order," and recalled that all of them were able to participate in the Catalan elections and that, despite not being able to exercise their rights in person, they were able to take office and subsequently elected a president, Quim Torra, on the 20th.

The Supreme Court opposes granting a second pardon to former Vice President Oriol Junqueras, as well as to former councillors Raül Romeva, Jordi Turull and Dolors Bassa, to pardon their disqualification sentences following the conviction for the 1-O referendum. This is the pardon request filed by a private citizen to lift the disqualification sentence against Oriol Junqueras, Dolors Bassa, Jordi Turull, and Raül Romeva, which prevents them from running as candidates in elections or holding public office until 2031 in the case of Junqueras, and 2030 for the rest of the former councilors. It should be remembered that the Supreme Court denied them amnesty for the crime of embezzlement.

"It includes statements that are loaded with assessments and opinions [...] which, as is already known, cannot function as an empirical element of judgement, because they lack value and truth and cannot be subject to verification." This is one of the attacks that Constitutional Court magistrate Juan Ramón Sáez sent Supreme Court president Manuel Marchena and the court that convicted nine pro-independence leaders of sedition. In his dissenting vote on the ruling against Oriol Junqueras's and Raül Romeva's appeals, which he also applies to Joaquim Forn and Dolors Bassa, the judge who acquitted Catalan police major Josep Lluís Trapero in Spain's National Court accuses the Supreme Court of not having correctly proven that in 2017 sedition occurred on September 20 and October 1 nor that those involved participated in it. Sáez believes that the conviction violated the right to the presumption of innocence and the right to criminal legality, among others.

The third chamber of the Supreme Court has dismissed the appeals filed against the pardons of Catalan political prisoners with an argument that allows it to avoid having to enter into the merits of the case. What it has determined is that the parties (PP, Vox and Cs), entities and individuals who filed the appeals are not legitimised to do so. Although there is still the possibility of appealing the decision, everything points to the end of the nightmare of the prison sentences that the second chamber of the same court imposed on nine political and social leaders of the independence movement.

The pardon of political prisoners will not be repealed, after the third chamber of the Supreme Court dismissed the appeals filed by PP, Vox and Cs. The court considers that the parties are not entitled to challenge the pardons and, therefore, the judges will not even have to analyse the case and determine whether Pedro Sánchez broke the law when granting the measure of grace. The procedure has not passed the preliminary phase in which it looks to see if MPs, parties and organisations that appealed the pardons were entitled to do so. The State Attorney's Office, representing the Spanish government, had argued they weren't. The court agreed.

The Courts' have accepted the pardons of political prisoners. The Supreme Court has rejected for the first time a complaint against the president of the Spanish government over the pardon of nine pro-independence leaders convicted over the Independence referendum, as has advanced eldiario.es and the high court has subsequently confirmed. The judges of the criminal chamber have rejected accusation of misfeasance presented by far-right Spanish Liberal Right party through lawyer José Ignacio Sánchez Rubio. The court's verdict, presided over by Manuel Marchena and with magistrate Susana Polo as rapporteur, is categorical and reproaches that the plaintiff does not offer "the minimum analysis of the criminal elements they invoke" and stresses that the measure of grace "has been applied by the competent authority' and that this cannot be considered "unjust or arbitrary".

With just four days to go before the meeting in Madrid between Pedro Sanchez and Pere Aragonès, this Friday the two presidents have disagreed on the limits the dialogue they are about to embark on must have. The Spanish president has shown himself to be in favour of dialogue between the two governments, but has set clear limits: respect for the "constitutional pact" and "democratic legality". Hours later, the Catalan president has replied that he will not renounce to putting forward two of his main demands: amnesty and self-determination. "Our only limit is the will of the citizens of Catalonia," he argued.

"Dear friends, if you see this video it is because the state apparatus has decided to limit my freedom". "Unfortunately the judge's decision has been to deprive us of our freedom, an act that does not respond to any principle of justice but rather attempts to frighten and punish us". On October 16th, 2017, Spain's High Court imprisoned the leaders of Òmnium and ANC, Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez, and Spain once again had Catalan political prisoners. Despite having the lowest sentence of all those who were tried in the Supreme Court, the Jordis are, in fact, those who have spent the most time behind bars: 1,346 days, or what is the same, 3 years, 8 months and 1 week between the prisons of Soto del Real and Lledoners (in addition to visiting others during transfers). They have served 41% of the sentence of 9 years in prison that will remain on their records.

The pardons of the Spanish government have become effective and the political prisoners are now free. The nine pro-independence leaders imprisoned since the end of 2017 will sleep at home tonight and will not have to return to prison. As they left jail, a crowd gathered to receive them, including members of the Catalan Government such as the President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, who was in Lledoners penitentiary. The released prisoners demanded amnesty for other victims of reprisals and assured that they will not change their pro-independence convictions or their political commitment to achieve the Catalan Republic. In short, that they will not do so despite the fact that it is the Spanish government that has promoted the measure of grace that has allowed them to leave prison before serving their entire sentence. "Repression has not defeated us," proclaimed the president of Òmnium Cultural, Jordi Cuixart.

This Tuesday, when the Spanish President, Pedro Sánchez, defended that the pardons are "the best decision for Catalonia and Spain" he was summarising the key of the argument by which his executive grants the pardons: the public utility of a decision that, he states, is taken thinking about the general interest. As stated in the files on Jordi Cuixart and Raül Romeva to which ARA has had access, the commitment to coexistence is the main theme of the Spanish government's motivation, even above the particular interests of those involved. In markedly political pardons, Sánchez's executive places the pardons as a first step to try to solve the Catalan conflict politically.

1. Taboos President Sánchez's commitment to pardons breaks the repressive dynamic that was imposed as the only response to the independence movement at least since October 2017, when the PSOE endorsed without reticence the subrogation of the conflict to the justice system. Now, the Spanish government seems to acknowledge that that option was a disaster and that it has to backtrack. The recognition of "the social usefulness" of releasing politicians who "represent hundreds of thousands of citizens" and the fact that Oriol Junqueras is singled out as "indisputable in the relationship between Catalonia and Spain" seems to make the change in register clear. Breaking the judicial taboo is the event.

After the pardon of nine political prisoners, there are still dozens of people indicted over the 2017 Independence referendum, among them, the exiles. Right now former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and the former Catalan ministers Toni Comín, Clara Ponsatí and Lluís Puig, as well as former deputies Marta Rovira -also secretary general of Esquerra- and CUP's Anna Gabriel are abroad as a result of charges brought against them.

Pardons are not enough. This was the Catalan government's first reaction after the measure of grace granted by the Spanish government to political prisoners was made official. President Pere Aragonès spoke from the Gothic gallery of the Palau de la Generalitat. To give the speech maximum solemnity, all members of the Government accompanied him. The main idea has been that pardons are a step in the right direction, but far from being a solution to the problem. Thus, he called for an end to "repression" in all its aspects and not only repression affecting political prisoners. "It is time to return to politics," he concluded.

Former minister Josep Rull is the third political prisoner who has appealed to European Courts against the Spanish Supreme Court's sentence of the Catalan Independence bid. This Friday, his lawyer, Jordi Pina, has officially filed an appeal at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg after the Spanish Constitutional Court rejected his last appeal -with two dissenting votes- and upheld the Supreme Court's sentence.

Three Spanish judges' associations have made their rejection of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Council of Europe report that calls for the release of political prisoners public this Friday. The report was rejected because it calls into question "the objectivity" of the Spanish justice system and, specifically, the trial and sentencing of the Independence bid. The Professional Association of the Magistracy, the Francisco de Vitoria Judicial Association and the Independent Judicial Forum go a little further and make an explicit request to the Spanish government: they ask it to "deploy the diplomatic instruments at its disposal" to prevent the approval of this report in the assembly of the Council of Europe, because they consider it "unfair and dishonourable to one of the powers of the State".

Just as Felipe VI, Pedro Sánchez has increased his presence in Catalonia just before granting pardons. In addition to visiting Barcelona on Friday for the final day of the Cercle d'Economia conference at hotel W, he will give a conference at the Liceu on Monday before 300 people to defend the measure of grace, La Vanguardia has advanced and ARA has confirmed. Sources of the Spanish government assure that it will be an "important" event that "will have much to do with the agenda of the reunion" with Catalonia.

The president of Madrid region, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, made some controversial statements on the role of Felipe VI in the pardons of the Catalan political prisoners this Sunday moments before the beginning of the rally in Plaza Colón in Madrid. Ayuso, in an attempt to accuse the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, of turning the king into "accomplice" of the pardons, has ended up directly questioning Felipe VI, questioning whether he should sign them and taking for granted that he could not sign them. "What will the King of Spain do from now on? Will he sign the pardons? Will they make him an accomplice to this?", Ayuso wondered.

It was not the massive demonstration that the triple right had imagined, nor was the joint photo of PP, Vox and Ciudadanos leaders repeated. This time they preferred to avoid each other and keep their own profile, but the three - Pablo Casado, Santiago Abascal and Inés Arrimadas - participated yesterday in the rally against Pedro Sánchez's government's plan to pardon Catalan political prisoners. Formally the act had been called by the civil platform Unión 78, but the three right-wing parties had publicly supported. In addition, the platform's leaders, including Rosa Díez, Fernando Savater and María San Gil, are closely linked to politics.

The PSOE as a whole has seen the danger it could fall into over pardons and has decided to close ranks with Pedro Sánchez in order to avoid giving arguments to the three right-wing parties who will demonstrate on Sunday in Plaza de Colón. The most significant move was made by former President Felipe González, who just a few weeks ago said in a television appearance that the circumstances were not right for them to be granted, yet this Thursday he described the initiative as "healthy". It is true that González, on the same television programme, was critical of the judicialisation of the Catalan conflict and defended that the issue had to be taken to the political arena; therefore, in a way, he left the door open to a rectification that has not taken long to arrive.