One of the jurists who will present Sumar's text claims amnesty against the "vigilante" judges

Considers that the measure would allow Parliament to recover the "primacy" that corresponds to it in a democratic State

MADRID, 10 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Joaquín Urías, professor of Constitutional Law, former lawyer of the Constitutional Court (TC) and one of the jurists who will participate this afternoon in the presentation of Sumar's legal opinion on the amnesty, has vindicated in an article published in the last few hours the "reasons " to grant it in front of some "vigilante" judges who he considers refuse to "apply the law."

This is how Urías expresses himself in an article published on Monday on the website ctxt.es entitled 'Reasons for an amnesty', defending as a central idea that "the measure would allow the democratically elected Parliament to recover the primacy that corresponds to it in the democratic State, in front of judges who usurp their functions".

Urías begins by explaining that he is neither Catalan nor does he support the independence of Catalonia, but that "as an Andalusian" he believes that "united in diversity we would all be stronger", adding that he is "honestly convinced" that "the Catalan pro-independence leaders "has subjected them to illegal persecution that has broken all the limits of the rule of law and brings us closer to authoritarianism."

"It is something that I have been defending in public since 2017, so it is not an analysis that responds to sympathies with any political party that needs one vote or another in Parliament to access power. It is, in my view, simply the consequence of radically believing in the rule of law and democracy, beyond individual interests," he explains.

Thus, he says that he did not understand that in 2017 "the Government sent battalions of police to beat citizens who massively participated in an act of peaceful protest", nor that "the Constitutional Court expressly prohibited Catalan civil organizations from organizing a symbolic act for the that whoever wanted could put a piece of paper in a transparent plastic box.

Urías understands that "it was a challenge to the State and that it could have political consequences," but he rejects that "the courts are there to prohibit popular political challenges." "After that pitched battle and the sad images of children and elderly people beaten for carrying a ballot in their hand, I thought that someone from the Government or whoever gave the order would resign. Instead, a judicial persecution was initiated against their political leaders. who repeatedly broke the rules of law," he points out.

For this jurist, the judges of the Supreme Court - who, in his opinion, "took on the matter without having the authority to do so" - "used provisional detention as an exemplary sanction, beyond the three cases in which it is permitted by law." Constitution" and imprisoned "without any legal justification" a defendant in the middle of an investiture debate "so that he would not be elected president of the Generalitat."

Furthermore, Uría considers that the independence leaders were sentenced to "disproportionate sentences, often for invented crimes." This is because, in his opinion, the Supreme Court's interpretation of sedition "departs" from the Penal Code. "Then I had no doubt that the law was not being applied, but that the judges were acting as vigilantes, regardless of the letter of the law," he says.

Along these lines, it also disfigures the interpretation that the magistrates made of the embezzlement reform. "The Supreme Court stood up to the popular will expressed by the Cortes and decided that it was not going to apply the law," he says, while saying he is "very aware" of the "dangers" of delegitimizing the top of this judicial body.

In this sense, Uría insists that "with respect to the Catalan independence challenge we have a Judicial Power that has invaded the powers of the Legislature." Hence he says that he is in favor of amnesty: "It is the only way by which the democratically elected Parliament can recover the primacy that corresponds to it in the democratic State, in the face of judges who usurp its functions."

The jurist assures that if the law is limited to the crimes of disobedience, embezzlement of funds and sedition "it will not mean setting any criminal free." "Because it is difficult to know if they are criminals when the judges have invented the crimes for which they were convicted," he says.

In his opinion, "there will also be no problems of equality in comparison with other activists convicted in other places, against whom the power of the courts was not abused in this way."

Thus, Uría wants an amnesty law to be approved "that is made with the scope and justification necessary to avoid a declaration of unconstitutionality and that this serves to overcome the conflict that is being experienced in Catalonia."