The second edition of DebatsUB starts with an in-depth critical analysis of the sentence by the Spanish Supreme Court

From left to right, Ujala Joshi, Mar Campins, Markus González, Xavier Pons, Joan Elias, Maite Vilalta, Jordi Nieva and Marc Molins.
From left to right, Ujala Joshi, Mar Campins, Markus González, Xavier Pons, Joan Elias, Maite Vilalta, Jordi Nieva and Marc Molins.
Institutional
(14/11/2019)

The second edition of the series Debats UB: Catalunya i Espanya started on Wednesday, November 13, with an in-depth analysis of the sentence by the Spanish Supreme Court from last October 14. The session, presided over by Rector Joan Elias and chaired by the Dean of the Faculty of Law, Xavier Pons, counted on the participation of Mar Campins, professor of International Public Law of the UB, Markus González, tenured lecturer of Constitutional Law and director of the Department of Political Science, Constitutional Law and Philosophy of Law of the UB, Ujala Joshi Jubert, tenured lecturer of Crime Law at the UB, Marc Molins, adjunct lecturer of Crime Law at the UB and Jordi Nieva, professor of Procedural Law at the UB.

From left to right, Ujala Joshi, Mar Campins, Markus González, Xavier Pons, Joan Elias, Maite Vilalta, Jordi Nieva and Marc Molins.
From left to right, Ujala Joshi, Mar Campins, Markus González, Xavier Pons, Joan Elias, Maite Vilalta, Jordi Nieva and Marc Molins.
Institutional
14/11/2019

The second edition of the series Debats UB: Catalunya i Espanya started on Wednesday, November 13, with an in-depth analysis of the sentence by the Spanish Supreme Court from last October 14. The session, presided over by Rector Joan Elias and chaired by the Dean of the Faculty of Law, Xavier Pons, counted on the participation of Mar Campins, professor of International Public Law of the UB, Markus González, tenured lecturer of Constitutional Law and director of the Department of Political Science, Constitutional Law and Philosophy of Law of the UB, Ujala Joshi Jubert, tenured lecturer of Crime Law at the UB, Marc Molins, adjunct lecturer of Crime Law at the UB and Jordi Nieva, professor of Procedural Law at the UB.

 Marc Molins gave the first speech, in which he highlighted several factors, such as the authors of the sentence identifying there is a political issue and that the constitutional text should be adapted so as to avoid a divorce between this text and the citizens. He continued saying the sentence has a base “on which we could build an amnesty speech”. He also noted the sentence does not provide a regressive reading of fundamental rights. Moreover, he stated the crime type regarding sedition should be re-defined and if “the conviction exceeds the guarantee of the process, it is clear that there are important doubts, like in all complex processes”.

Ujala Joshi also participated from the view of crime law, to say that this conviction is “not consistent”. “They adopt a wide idea of violence, they take it too far”, she said. “There is not an appraisal of testimonial evidence; in the theory plan this is fine, but when trying to apply the crime to the specific case we do not know why this is so; we do not know why these facts result in the crime of sedition”, she said. “For me, this sentence is not very coherent”, she added, and concluded that “we will not be able to solve a political problem with such a sentence”.

Jordi Nieva talked about this topic from the point of view of procedural law. He noted that he believes “the criminal charge was exaggerated” and that a competent court “would have been the High Court of Justice of Catalonia”. He also disapproved of the adopted provisional prison measures. Nieva focused on the aspect of the evidence that was shown in the trial “since examinations were restricted for no reason, which does not go in accordance to what we understand as cross-examination, as defended by the European Court of Human Rights”. 

Markus González commented on the potential appeals regarding the sentence of the Supreme Court. “The writ of amparo is perfectly open to contest this conviction”, he said. He explained that “we cannot expect the Supreme Court to modify the interpretation of crime legality”. However, we have to think about which fundamental rights could have been violated. In this sense, González thinks those fundamental rights with more potential to present an appeal in this case would be those regarding the law-predetermined judge and the principle of criminalization.

Last, Mar Campins showed the side of European law and commented on the conclusions of the general attorney of the European Union on the preliminary ruling presented by the Spanish Court to the The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on the immunity of one of the accused politicians, Oriol Junqueras. Campins made a personal assessment on the response of the general attorney of the European Union in the sense that parliamentary status and immunity are acquired from the moment when he is chosen nd defended that “the general attorney made an extreme extensive interpretation of the parliamentary status”. In any case, she noted that if the Court of Justice of the European Union agrees with the general attorney, which would be relevant for future writs of amparo regarding the Spanish Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights.

The debate activity has held the presentation of the published volume by Editions and Publications of the UB that gathers the first three sessions of the first edition of the cycle #DebatsUB, which took place in June and September (last year). This first book, Catalunya i Espanya (I), collects the contribution of nine authors (Daniel Innerarity, Jordi Casassas, Joaquim Albareda, Ismael Saz, Xavier Gil, Antoni Castells, Jesús Ruiz-Huerta, Albert Carreras and Josep Vicent Boira), from different universities, who analyse the relationship between Catalonia and Spain from different ideologies, and guided by their commitment to dialogue, freedom, respect and intellectual honesty. The book, which can be downloaded for free, is divided into two theme areas: on the one hand, it gathers the complexity of these relationships from a historical perspective, and on the other, the economic and financial factors that marked this path.

At the end of the debate session, the vice-rector for Equality and Social Action, Maite Vilalta, announced the topics for the following #DebatsUB: the role of the media, social aspects and the international view of the conflict. #DebatsUB respond to the Universityʼs will of becoming a meeting point for different existing sensitivities in our society and to promote the debate and use of words to favour the understanding of conflicts and work on their solution. At the same time, this provides an academic perspective of the worries that affect the people, giving tools for analysis and promoting collective thinking.