Rull accuses Spain's Constitutional Court of 'lacking moral authority'

Spain's Constitutional court "lacks moral authority," according to former territory minister, Josep Rull, who testified on Wednesday in the trial of Catalan independence leaders in the Spanish Supreme Court.

Rull is the fifth member of the Carles Puigdemont cabinet to give evidence in the proceedings, after Oriol Junqueras and Joaquim Forn (last Thursday), and Jordi Turull and Raül Romeva (on Tuesday).

The former minister accused the Constitutional Court, which declared the 2017 referendum illegal, of acting as a political tool in “having been systematically utilized by the Spanish government to suspend all initiatives by the Catalan parliament.”

As an example, Rull pointed to his appeal for release currently before the high court: "I've been waiting for the Constitutional Court to resolve my appeal against my preventive detention for over eight months. It has still not issued a ruling. [When we passed the referendum law], in less than 24 hours the court had met and suspended it," he said.