Catalan executive to petition Constitutional Court to reconsider reform suspension

The Catalan Government is to formally petition Spain’s Constitutional Court (TC in Spanish) to reconsider its decision to preemptively suspend the reform of the Catalan Parliament’s regulations approved last Wednesday. On Monday, the TC upheld an appeal filed by the Spanish Government objecting to the amendment to the rules, allowing bills to be fast-tracked with only a single reading in the Catalan chamber. Carles Puigdemont’s executive responded on Tuesday with the announcement that the government intends to file a petition for reconsideration, urging the TC to lift the preemptive suspension.

If the petition is not admitted by the court, then the executive will seek to have the suspension lifted by submitting a defense of the constitutionality of article 135.2 of the amendment, which was appealed by the Spanish Government. Announcing the executive’s intentions, government spokesman, Jordi Turull, called both the Spanish Government's appeal and the TC’s stance as “political and legal indecency”, as in his opinion it “blows apart” the principle that everyone is equal before the law.

The decision was taken in the final meeting of the Catalan executive before the summer recess. The government will next meet on August 29, although the Catalan parliament’s bureau will first decide whether to admit the draft referendum bill registered on Monday for debate from August 16.