The Catalan Government sees as “very worrying” the decision to send the 9-N case to the Spanish Supreme Court

Barcelona (CNA).- The Catalan Government criticised on Monday the decision by the Catalan Supreme Court to refer the 9-N case to the Spanish Supreme Court and considered it “very worrying”. The Catalan Vice president and Government Spokeswoman, Neus Munté, told CNA that the case against the 2014 participatory process should already be “closed”. “It is a political trial”, she regretted. The decision to send the case to the Madrid-based Court was prompted by the fact that one of the public figures giving testimony in the trial is current member of the Spanish Congress and former Spokesman of the Catalan Government, Francesc Homs. “Following the law’s logic and democracy, no one should be prosecuted for putting the ballot boxes out there and allowing people to express their voice”, Munté said. 

The Catalan Government Spokeswoman said that the participatory process, that saw more than 2 million people voting on whether or not they favour independence, was “totally legal”. According to her, the trial, which includes former Catalan President Artur Mas, former Vice president Joana Ortega, Catalan MP Irene Rigau and now former spokesman Francesc Homs, is “political”.  

“We have to defend again that everything that was done before the 9-N was absolutely legal. We are very opposed to the decision to send the trial to the Supreme Court when the case should already be closed”, she stated. The Catalan Supreme Court Magistrate will send the case to the Spanish Supreme Court for it to decide if it formally wants to investigate Francesc Homs, who now sits in the Spanish Congress and therefore would need to be prosecuted by this highest court. According to the judge, the potential case against Homs cannot be separated from the one that affects the other figures being investigated: Artur Mas, Joana Ortega and Irene Rigau.