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The Spanish constitutional court has suspended the Catalan parliament after a complaint by the Catalan socialist party.Pictured: a demonstration in Barcelona for independence in 2010.Picture credit: SBA73 

It admitted the complaint by the Partit del Socialistes de Catalunya (PSC) by arguing that if the plenary voted on independence, it would break the constitution and “annihilate” the rights of the members of parliament.

The president of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, had announced he wanted to appear before parliament on Monday 9 October to validate the results of the referendum and bring the declaration of independence.

Rule of law objections to the referendum

Víctor Ferreres Comella, professor of constitutional law at Pompeu Fabra university, stated in a blog post:

“A few weeks ago, the Catalan Parliament passed two important statutes. It did so through a fast-track procedure that eliminated all the rights of participation that the parties in the opposition are normally awarded. One statute called a referendum on independence, to be held on October 1, 2017. The other stipulated the procedure that needed to be followed to declare Catalonia’s independence and give birth to a new Catalan Republic. According to these laws, if the referendum reveals that there are more votes in favor of independence than against it, the Catalan Parliament must issue a declaration of independence in 48 hours. A provisional set of laws will then apply, until a new Constitution is adopted.”

On Sunday 1 October, a referendum on Catalan independence led to a deep political crisis and protests in Spain. Before the referendum, the Spanish government and the country’s constitutional court had declared the referendum illegal.

Turnout has not been officially confirmed yet, but there are figures cited between 42% and 47%. According to the Catalan government, 90% of participants voted for the region to become independent. The official results are not yet out, however.

Ferreres Comella wrote:

 “Under the Spanish Constitution (as is true of almost all democratic Constitutions in the world), it is unlawful for a region to unilaterally secede from the rest of the country. The Spanish Constitution does not recognize the right of Catalans to “choose secession”. Nor does the principle of the self-determination of peoples, which is part of public international law, extend such a right to Catalans.

“As expected, the Spanish government challenged those statutes before the Constitutional Court. The Court quickly suspended their operation by way of interim measures. So the referendum that was to be held last Sunday, October 1, was illegal. The Spanish government, the prosecutors and the judiciary adopted various measures during the previous days to neutralize the logistics of the referendum. The technical infrastructure was their target. In spite of their successes on this front, they were ultimately unable to prevent Catalan citizens from actually voting on October 1 in an informal referendum. Indeed, people went to the polling stations and managed to cast their ballots.”

Nearly 900 people were hurt as police violently tried to enforce a Spanish court order suspending the vote. Police officers were seen storming into polling stations. The violence triggered mass demonstrations in Catalonia over the next days and an international outcry condemning the hard-line approach of Rajoy, the Spanish prime minister.

Among the general disruption, there were also reports of irregularities. According to the BBC, there were “several reports of gaping irregularities, partly attributed to a system which permitted voters to cast their ballots anywhere in a bid to get around the police measures to stop the vote. Spanish media carried reports of some Catalan areas counting far more votes than residents.”

If these reports are verified, this will considerably weaken any argument on the legitimacy of the referendum. Furthermore, if turnout is under 50%, it can easily be argued that the vote does not reflect the will of the majority.

Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy said on Monday 2 October that “there was no referendum, we witnessed a mere staging”, and that it had been “a premeditated and conscious attack, to which the state reacted with firmness and serenity.” He added that “we did what we had to do, acting within the law and only with the law. We are the government of Spain, I am the president of the government and assumed my responsibility.”

The premier has been seeking cross-party political support for his hard-line approach.

On 3 October, the king of Spain, Felipe IV, gave a televised speech in which he called the Catalan government “irresponsible” for the independence campaign. He said that the authorities of Catalonia “have placed themselves outside the law and democracy, they have tried to break the unity of Spain and national sovereignty,” adding that it was “the responsibility of the legitimate powers of the state to ensure the constitutional order.”

The monarch usually makes just one televised address a year, on Christmas, and is usually, like any head of state under a parliamentary system, above day-to-day politics. This shows the gravity of the situation. He did not speak any Catalan and did not condemn the police attacks.

The Catalan president Carles Puigdemont attacked Rajoy for “disastrous policies” and said repeatedly that the king had missed an opportunity and disappointed Catalans. He added that the region is simply doing what many others have done in their quests for more recognition and would still contribute to Spain.

The Spanish government responded with a statement saying that if Puigdemont wants to negotiate, "he knows perfectly what he has do beforehand: return to the path of the law, that he should never have left.”

International reactions to the aftermath of the referendum

European Union officials sided with Madrid, with Frans Timmermans, first vice-president of the European Commission, saying it was the “duty for any government to uphold the rule of law, and this sometimes requires the proportionate use of force.”

Elmar Brok, an EPP member of the European parliament, said that Rajoy had driven moderates into the separatist camp with the force of Sunday’s police crackdown, which saw police beating would-be voters with batons and firing rubber bullets. “I consider the police intervention to be disproportionate, it was also politically damaging,” Brok told Deutschlandfunk radio. “I am very worried that this situation could escalate.”

The European commission issued a statement in which it said it was “an internal matter for Spain that has to be dealt with in line with the constitutional order of Spain.”

It continued with:

“We also reiterate the legal position held by this Commission as well as by its predecessors. If a referendum were to be organised in line with the Spanish Constitution it would mean that the territory leaving would find itself outside of the European Union. Beyond the purely legal aspects of this matter, the Commission believes that these are times for unity and stability, not divisiveness and fragmentation.

We call on all relevant players to now move very swiftly from confrontation to dialogue. Violence can never be an instrument in politics. We trust the leadership of prime minister Mariano Rajoy to manage this difficult process in full respect of the Spanish Constitution and of the fundamental rights of citizens enshrined therein.”

EU commissioner Günther Oettinger went a step further and said that

“the situation is very, very worrying. A civil war is imaginable, in the middle of Europe. One can only hope that soon a discussion will be started between Madrid and Barcelona.”

With the suspension of parliament, this becomes more likely, as protests are sure to follow.

What next?

The Economist writes that:

“The drivers of the Catalan crisis are thus many and deep-seated and leave little room for a negotiated solution. If Mr Puigdemont's administration can be persuaded to forego declaring independence unilaterally, mainstream parties at the national level would need to make serious concessions, probably in line with the original draft of the 2006 statute of autonomy.”