Pedro Sánchez admits privately what everyone else knows: that no matter how often he lands on his feet, next year it will be difficult for him to repeat the feat of 2023, that is, to lose the elections but end up governing thanks to the votes of a parliamentary majority Frankenstein. (Especially if the left-wing majority continues to make friends as Rufián usually does or as Vice President Yolanda Díaz did yesterday, when she called Junts a “classist and racist” party, despite being the first to rush to Brussels to ask for Puigdemont's party's votes for the investiture.)

Enough has been written (and used to legitimize just causes) about the duplicitous role played by certain national minorities, stateless nations, and even newly independent nations during the rise of Nazism and Fascism to power in the 1930s. It will soon be a hundred years old, it should be noted briefly. If the Flemish had enjoyed their national rights then, probably no one would have been tempted to fall into the clutches of a Hitler who, knowing the situation of this stateless nation, sought to use it against the Kingdom of Belgium. If Ireland had not suffered centuries of British rule, it would surely have acted differently during the Second World War. If minorities oppressed by certain states had not heard of this oppression, Nazism could not have presented itself, in any way, as a potential advocate.

The ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday, which supports the possibility that the Constitutional Court may veto, in certain cases, the processing of motions in favour of the right to self-determination or against the monarchy, has been a bucket of cold water, and there will be time to analyse it. In this article I focus on another issue relating to the ECHR. In the framework of the negotiations between Junts per Catalunya and Pedro Sánchez's executive in Switzerland, on Monday it became known that the Spanish Council of Ministers would approve Spain's accession to Protocol 16 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; Treaty No. 214) immediately. This protocol, which entered into force in August 2018, introduced a significant innovation in the judicial system for the protection of human rights in Europe. Specifically, it allows the highest instances of state courts designated by the Member States to request an advisory opinion from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on questions of principle related to the interpretation or application of the rights and freedoms defined in the Convention. Applications can be made in the context of cases pending before the competent domestic courts, and the ECtHR has the power to accept the application and issue an opinion which is formally non-binding. Although the innovation is significant, it is not comparable with the impact of the preliminary ruling procedure in European Union (EU) law due to the different legal structure of the Protocol No. 16 procedure compared to the preliminary ruling procedure at the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) – the so-called preliminary question, which is binding because the aim is to ensure the supremacy of EU law.

Three current issues of the day. Mazón is already a political corpse, booed in the streets and at events, which he has now, as a desperate measure of self-defense, shown the capture of a security camera from the emergency centre which determines that, in fact, he arrived at around eight thirty in the evening on the day of the DANA, as a way of avoiding responsibility for not having sent the alert earlier by mobile phone because he was not there. It doesn't matter, since the day before yesterday the judge clearly determined that the majority of the 227 dead did not receive any official alert that would probably have saved them, all those who had anything to do with this decision are well trapped, and the head of the trapped is Mazón.

The ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that supports the right of the Constitutional Court to veto the processing of motions in favor of the right to self-determination or against the monarchy is undoubtedly a bucket of cold water and a reality check for the independence movement. It is true that the ECHR decision balances the rights of the deputies and the TC, but it also seems that the idea that European justice would end up giving the independence movement the right in all its cases against Spain has turned out not to be true. It is not so easy, therefore, for European judges to overrule a decision by the highest interpreter of the Constitution of a Member State.

That a court that calls itself a "Human Rights" court should establish that it is proportionate to veto a debate and a vote in parliament on the right to self-determination and the monarchy is the closest thing to a contradiction. Surely, to support their ruling, the European judges have found more solid legal grounds in the Constitution of a pre-existing state and in the jurisprudence of its highest interpreting body than in the attempts to disconnect from a regional Parliament with concealed constituent intentions. But the paradox remains: there is a right for self-determination or the monarchy to be voted on by citizens in an electoral programme but not for them to be voted on by their representatives, even if a parliamentary majority is in favour of it at the polls.

A setback for the independence movement, which has always maintained that everything should be possible to discuss in the Catalan Parliament. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday upheld that the Catalan parliament cannot discuss self-determination: it considers that the Constitutional Court (TC) has the right "in extreme circumstances" to veto resolutions that go against the Magna Carta in order to protect the Constitution. Strasbourg was to decide on Thursday whether freedom of expression and the political rights of MPs had been violated following the TC's veto of the processing of the resolution proposals on self-determination and the monarchy in the Parliament in autumn 2019, and it upheld the decisions of the high court. The ECHR recognises that the rights of parliamentarians were limited, but not violated. According to the European magistrates, the TC's decision was "proportionate".

He had been dodging lawsuits throughout his speakership, but just before the end of his term, the Prosecutor accused Roger Torrent of contempt of court. Once the instruction was finished, the Catalan High Court announced the trial will be held on July 12, 13 and 15, starting at 10 am. In addition to Torrent, the rest of pro-independence parliamentary bureau members have been subpoenaed: Josep Costa, who was deputy speaker, and Eusebi Campdepadrós and Adriana Delgado, who were secretaries. The investigating magistrate concluded that there was sufficient evidence that all of them had acted in contempt of the Constitutional Court by allowing the Catalan Parliament to discuss self-determination and the monarchy. The Prosecutor's Office is seeking a 20-month ban and a €30,000 fine for Torrent, Costa and Campdepadrós and an 18-month ban and a €24,000 fine for Delgado, who only participated in the processing of one of the initiatives.