The Barcelona Bar Association claims that self-determination is an inalienable right of Catalonia

Barcelona (ACN).- The People’s Rights Commission of the Barcelona Bar Association sustains that, according to international law, the self-determination of Catalonia is an inalienable right, because it is a fundamental and universal right of all nations. While is it true that the current Spanish Constitution does not allow for a self-determination referendum, the Barcelona lawyers' association argues that “in a democratic society, the law should be the expression of the people’s choice”. If the Spanish Government does not permit the referendum, the Commission defends a unilateral declaration of independence. The People’s Rights Commission of the Barcelona Bar Association points out that the right to self-determination has led to a four-fold of the number of sovereign states and highlights that 20 of these states are the result of secession, such as Norway, Finland, Ireland, Iceland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Slovenia or Montenegro.

In its statement, the Commission makes it clear that the Spanish position, which defends that popular sovereignty belongs to the State, is completely false, and considers that, following the United Nations Charter, “sovereignty must lay in societies and not in the states”. Therefore, no one can deny the Catalan society its condition of political subject and the right to decide.

That is why the Commission considers that, despite the fact that the Spanish Constitution does not foresee the self-determination right of Catalonia, this legislation goes against “the democratically expressed wishes of a national community”.

With all these facts in hand, the Commission considers that “the Spanish Government would have no legitimacy to stop a Catalan Government decision to organise a referendum in order to know the majority choice of Catalan society”. The Commission also adds that, “if the pro-independence option won, the Spanish Government would have no other option than to start negotiating the conditions for secession”.

If the Spanish Government stopped the celebration of a self-determination vote or did not recognise its result, the Bar Association recommends a unilateral declaration of independence proclaimed by the Catalan Parliament. If that were to happen, they say “the independence declaration would have immediate effects to make Catalonia a new state”, because Catalonia “offers the minimum characteristics of a state, which are a permanent population, a well defined territory and sovereignty”.