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The magistrates of the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) held this Monday an emergency meeting and unanimously agreed to accept the appeal presented by Spain’s executive, which urged to suspend Catalonia’s pro-independence roadmap, the next steps of which were approved last week by the Parliament. By the end of August the TC will decide if it will apply prison charges to the Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell. The 72 pro-independence MPs in the Catalan Chamber and the Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, have expressed their solidarity with Forcadell and insisted that the decision to pass the conclusions of the Committee to Study the Constitutive Process was not hers but the democratic and majoritarian will of Catalans. 

Catalan Government Spokeswoman, Neus Munté responded this Friday to Spain’s decision to take the Parliament’s approval of the pro-independence roadmap before the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC). Munté considered it “unacceptable” that the Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell, could be suspended and insisted that the Catalan executive “won’t move” from its “deeply democratic way”. She insisted that Catalonia’s roadmap towards independence “remains intact” and stated that “no court could be higher than the democratic will democratically expressed” in the 27-S Catalan elections. “It would be unprecedented that the president of Parliament could be suspended from office by a court decision”, she stated.

The Spanish Government will urge the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) to allow it to claim criminal liability against the Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell, for having disobeyed the TC’s rulings. The current Spanish Cabinet, which met this Friday, also agreed to impede Forcadell from launching the pro-independence roadmap approved on Wednesday by the Parliament. In particular, the Spanish executive calls for the TC to “proceed to consider the witness of particulars in order to claim criminal liability against the Parliament’s President for disobeying the rulings of the TC, which all public servants are compelled to obey”. The petition also aims to expressly ban the Parliament’s President, the Parliament Bureau and the Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, from promoting any initiative in relation to the pro-independence process. 

The Spanish Government has again turned to the court, this time to respond to this Wednesday’s approval of the pro-independence roadmap by the Catalan Chamber. Current Spanish President, Mariano Rajoy, has already ordered the State Attorney to write a document which will be approved this Friday by the Spanish Cabinet. The Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) repeatedly insisted that any declaration or action towards the constitution of the Catalan Republic will be invalidated, since this would have emerged from the pro-independence proposal agreed by the Parliament on the 9^th of November and which is considered unconstitutional by the TC. Rajoy also called the other main leaders in the Spanish Parliament to communicate to them his decision.

The Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) has unanimously suspended some precepts of the law on fiscal measures which foresees the development of so-called state structures in Catalonia. In particular, the magistrates have considered unconstitutional the plan for the creation of the Catalan Tax Agency, the catalogue of strategic infrastructures and the plans for the energy and railway sectors, amongst others. The suspension, which has now been confirmed, affects the same articles which were temporarily annulled in June 2015 when the Spanish Government asked for legal action against Catalonia’s plans for the creation of state structures. Later, in November 2015, the TC accepted the appeal presented by the Spanish executive to stop the reform of Catalonia’s Tax Agency.

FC Barcelona’s Player, Lionel Messi, and his father Jorge have been sentenced to 21 months in prison after Barcelona’s High Court found them guilty of three counts of tax evasion. The court also ordered the football star to pay a fine of more than 2 MEUR and his father to pay 1.5MEUR. However, as the sentence is under two years, it is unlikely that Messi and his father end up in prison, especially ifthere is no prior criminal report. Moreover, the Court’s decision is not definitive and can still be appealed before Spain's Supreme Court. Messi and his father are accused of having moved 4.1m EUR earned from the player’s image rights to tax havens between 2007 and 2009.  

The magistrates at the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) lifted the cautionary suspension against the functions and structure of the Catalan Ministry for Foreign Affairs, which they dictated five months ago. However, they have kept the suspension on the Ministry’s name. While they considered that the functions and structure of the department match the Catalan Government’s competences, as far as they are limited to “foreign projection” they still believe that the denomination of the ‘Catalan Ministry for Foreign Affairs’ could represent an invasion of the Spanish State’s competences on this matter. 

Spain’s Constitutional Court (TC) has approved the appeals presented by Spanish Unionist ‘Ciutadans’, the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) and the Conservative Catalan People’s Party (PPC) in November in relation to the pro-independence declaration approved by the Parliament. The three parties presented writs of protection and considered that the pro-independence forces’ agreed declaration to start building a new country violated citizens’ right of participation and that of the parliamentary representatives, as the Spokesperson Bureau was convened before PPC constituted themselves as a parliamentary group. This Tuesday, the magistrates in the TC partially upheld the appeals. The content of the pro-independence forces’ agreed declaration was already suspended by the TC in December, and declared it unconstitutional and, therefore, invalid. 

Leo Messi and his father testified this Thursday before Barcelona’s High Court. They are accused of having moved 4.1m EUR earned from the player’s image rights to tax havens between 2007 and 2009. In his statement, the FC Barcelona player assured that his life is “limited to playing football” and that he had “full confidence” in his father and the lawyers who managed his publicity contracts. This is the same statement that Messi gave in 2013, when he had to testify before the Court for the same case. Spain’s Tax Agency has requested 22 months in prison for each of them for having moved 4.1m EUR earned from publicity contracts to tax havens between 2007 and 2009. On the other hand, the public prosecutor is only accusing Messi’s father.

The appeal presented in April by Spain’s executive calling for the suspension of some articles of the Catalan law against energy poverty has been accepted by the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC). In particular, the magistrates have cautionarily suspended 8 articles mainly oriented toward avoiding evictions. According to the TC, the suspension is automatic and therefore the magistrates “couldn’t do anything” but accept the Spanish government’s appeal. The Catalan Government’s Spokeswoman, Neus Munté, stated that this suspension was “to be expected”. The TC’s decision comes two days after thousands of people rallied in Barcelona to protest over the Spanish court’s measures against numerous laws passed by the Catalan Parliament. 

Former Catalan Minister for the Presidency, Frances Homs, is being investigated by Spain’s Supreme Court for helping to organise the 9-N symbolic vote on independence in 2014. Homs, who is currently the leader of Catalan coalition ‘Democràcia i Llibertat’ in the Spanish Parliament, is accused of disobedience, perversion of justice and misappropriation of public funds, the same charges for which former Catalan President Artur Mas, former Vice-President Joana Ortega and former Catalan Minister of Education Irene Rigau were also summonsed last October. Homs lamented the “low democratic quality” of the Spanish State and assured that he will testify before the court “carrying the pro-independence flag”. 

The Catalan President Carles Puigdemont announced that the Government will prepare new legislation to protect the core policies of the social emergency law suspended by the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC). The new law will include “practical tools with legal security” that will “reformulate” the suspended articles of the legislation but “keep its spirit”. Drafting a new law was the main compromise of the social emergency summit organised on Tuesday by the Catalan Government, the local authorities and the main political parties in Catalonia following the Spanish Government’s legal challenge against the social emergency law. Puigdemont described the negotiations as “long, intense and very useful” and said that the new law is needed “to restore everything the Constitutional Court has suspended”. The meeting, he said, “wasn’t about political discrepancies but about showing that this issue concerns us all”.

Less than 24 hours after meeting with her Catalan counterpart, current Spanish Vice President Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría announced that some articles of the Catalan law against energy poverty will be taken before the Constitutional Court (TC). Thus, Catalan Vice President Oriol Junqueras’ demands for the Spanish executive to “reconsider” this procedure haven’t been listened to. However, Santamaría nuanced that those precepts which are in relation to guaranteeing the energy supply to those who may be at social risk are not affected by the suspension. On the other hand, some measures oriented toward avoiding evictions have been suspended. Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, responded by saying that this measure leaves “in the open” the most vulnerable families.  

Catalan Vice President, Oriol Junqueras met this Thursday with his Spanish counterpart Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría in what Junqueras described as a “very cordial but very difficult” encounter. One of the main subjects laid on the table revolved around the recent suspension of several Catalan laws by the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC). In reference to this, Junqueras accused the TC of acting according to “political interests” rather than considering those of the citizens and asked Sáenz de Santamaría to reconsider the suspension of the Catalan law against energy poverty, as they announced a few weeks ago. Junqueras regretted that the Spanish executive is only temporary “when it is in their interest”. Junqueras, who is also Catalan Minister for Economy and Tax Office, also referred to Catalonia’s deficit target set by the Spanish government and described it as “unfair, arbitrary and far from what citizens deserve”.

The Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) has partially admitted an appeal made by the Spanish government which considered unconstitutional the Catalan law which bans ‘fracking’ in Catalonia and the regulation against building department stores of more than 800 m² in urban areas. Regarding the prohibition of ‘fracking’, the Catalan law foresaw the prohibition of this well-simulation technique in which rock is fractured by a pressurised liquid “when it may have negative effects on the geologic, environmental and socioeconomic characteristics of the area”. However, the TC considered that it “invaded competences of the Spanish state”.So far, there have been 33 acts approved by the Catalan government and Parliament which have later been taken before the Constitutional Court.