Supreme Court rejects 2017 referendum leaders' appeals and keeps disqualification penalties

The Spanish Supreme Court rejected appeals of pro-independence leaders to see their sentences for their role in organizing the 2017 referendum reduced. The jury kept the leaders' disqualification penalties, as announced on Friday.

Earlier this year, prosecutors from the court requested that the disqualification penalties were not reduced, going against the requests of the Spanish government's legal representatives, as they suggested the sentences could be halved.

Pro-independence leaders Oriol Junqueras (13 years barred from holding public office), Raül Romeva, Jordi Turull, and Dolors Bassa (12) had asked for their disqualifications to be reduced after the crime of sedition —for which they were convicted in 2019— was removed from the penal code and replaced with the lesser 'aggravated public disorder.' 

Referendum leaders, pardoned in 2021 by the Spanish government, were also convicted for misuse of public funds which implies penalties of between 10-20 years of disqualification. Therefore, even though their sentence established they had committed these crimes in the framework of the now-repealed crime of sedition, prosecutors maintain that it is necessary to keep the disqualification punishments.

Prosecutors argued that what Junqueras, Romeva, Turull, and Bassa did during Catalonia's independence push qualifies as a serious misuse of public funds.

Pardoned leaders appealed after the court read the revamped penal code on February 13 and kept the same penalties. The jury, rejected those appeals because they deny that the Catalan leaders' right to a defense was violated.

While lawyers of the leaders say that the Supreme Court did not sentence anyone for using public funds for the referendum, judges rule that a budget was allocated to organize an illegal activity, "holding a forbidden referendum." Therefore, those convicted were driven "by a profit motive."

The jury also rejected leader Jordi Sánchez's appeal as "his acts of violence and intimidation can be incorporated in the crime of aggravated public disorder," the court said.

The general secretary of Junts per Catalunya, Jordi Turull, is confident that "impartiality and justice" will be found in the European courts, "and not revenge and persecution." The Supreme Court decision can be appealed again at the continental level. 

In a tweet following the results of the appeal being announces, Turull added that "here is not the slightest change. They remain the same, so do I. And nothing will stop my active commitment to the goal of achieving Catalonia's independence."