LAWYERS for three of the jailed pro-Catalan independence leaders have lodged another appeal to try to have their cases heard in the High Court of Catalonia, instead of the Spanish Supreme Court.
It followed a ruling on Thursday by top judge Manuel Marchena that the Madrid court was competent to judge the trials on sedition and rebellion charges of former ministers, the ex-speaker of the Catalan Parliament and two grassroots leaders. He sent six other cases alleging the lesser offence of disobedience to the Catalan court.
Lawyers for Jordi Turull, Josep Rull and Jordi Sanchez insisted yesterday that the Supreme Court should not hear the cases because none of the alleged offences were committed outside Catalonia.
They also said there was no proof of the violence required to justify a charge of rebellion.
One of the legal team, Jordi Pina, said: “The court has had to create ad hoc new criteria of competence to hold that the … accusations were committed, presumably, outside of Catalonia.”
He said the person who processed the court papers made no mention of any alleged offences being committed outside the region.
Meanwhile, political stalemate continues after Pedro Sanchez, the Spanish prime minister, dismissed a 21-point document from Catalan President Quim Torra as a “monologue”.
The document’s precise contents have not been revealed following the two leaders’ meeting last week, but Torra later described it as “a pact of state based on the great consensus of Catalan society: 80% in favour of exercising the right of self-determination with an agreed and binding referendum; 80% against political repression; and 80% for a Republican Catalonia, without the Spanish monarchy”.
In his seven months in government, Sanchez has repeatedly said the solution to the Catalan crisis had to be found within the framework of the Spanish constitution.
In a speech after his last cabinet meeting of the year yesterday, he said: “Within the constitution and the statute we can talk about everything.
“Everything that is outside the constitution is a monologue.”
Elsewhere, John Atkinson, a Glasgow-based professor, received a message from Tracey Baucells, his cousin who lives in Catalonia, from the fields outside Lledoners Prison, where seven of the political prisoners are incarcerated.
She had joined one of the mass demonstrations outside the institutions, along with thousands of others.
READ MORE: Spending Christmas with Catalonia's jailed pro-indy leaders
Earlier in the week, thousands of people had taken Christmas to the prisoners with carol singing.
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