pérez de los cobos

Spain’s Constitutional Court has unanimously decided to reject the Catalan Parliament’s requests to sideline 2 of its 12 members from the debate and final verdict on the law and decree regarding Catalonia’s self-determination consultation vote. The Catalan Parliament considered that the Court’s President, Francisco Pérez de los Cobos, and the rapporteur on the appeal against the Catalan Law on Consultation Votes, Pedro José González-Trevijano, were not impartial on this issue. Pérez de los Cobos has been a member of the People’s Party – which runs the Spanish Government – and González-Trevijano has worked with the PP’s think-tank. In addition, they both share extreme Spanish nationalist stances: the first one has publicly insulted Catalan identity on several occasions and the second one has defended the maintenance of the shrine where Franco remains are exposed.

The judicial battle for the 9^th of November's vote was intensified in the last few hours by Catalan authorities and the Spanish Government. On Thursday evening, the Catalan Parliament's Bureau agreed to challenge 2 of the 12 Constitutional Court members for their closeness to the People's Party (PP), which runs the Spanish Government. They are the Court's President, Francisco Pérez de los Cobos, who was a PP member until 2011, and Pedro José González-Trevijano, who is directly dealing with the Spanish Government's appeal. Moreover, the Spanish Government has announced it will include in its appeals, the election of the members of the Control Commission for consultation votes, which was voted for on Wednesday by the Catalan Parliament and ratified by the Catalan President on Thursday, despite the Court's temporary suspension of the law on which it is based.

Spain's Constitutional Court has reached a unanimous decision against the Catalan Parliament's 'Declaration of Sovereignty', approved in January 2013 and appealed by the Spanish Government. In May 2013 the Constitutional Court put the Declaration on hold, temporarily stopping its implementation while it was reaching a definitive decision, which has happened this Tuesday evening. In the end the Court has declared the first part of the text, which stated that "the people of Catalonia is, for reasons of democratic legitimacy, a sovereign political and legal subject", "unconstitutional and void". However, it adds that the people of Catalonia have "the right to decide" but not "to self-determination", and it points out that the Constitution can be reformed. After months of internal debate and previous failed attempts to reach a consensus, the decision arrived a few hours after the Catalan Parliament had approved a motion to disqualify 3 of the 12 members of the Constitutional Court of not being impartial on this issue.

On the same day, the Court re-affirmed its decision to keep its current Chairman in position despite his anti-Catalan public stance and having been a member of the governing People’s Party (PP) until 2011. On top of this, Catalan and Basque Members of the European Parliament from five different parties formally asked the European Commission to intervene against the politicisation of the Spanish Constitutional Court, stressing that EU democracies should have an independent judiciary. The Constitutional Court is the highest interpreter of Spain’s legislation, has to guarantee the respect of fundamental rights and acts as a referee between the different government levels and political actors. In this capacity, it ruled against the appeal presented by the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) against the law that abolished the requirement to know Catalan for working as a public servant in Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera, despite it being the local language.

The new President of the Spanish Constitutional Court, Francisco Pérez de los Cobos, has turned out to be a member of the People’s Party (PP), which runs the Spanish Government. In addition, the expert in labour law had drafted several reports for the PP on several issues. On top of this, Pérez de los Cobos wrote a book with many sentences against Catalonia and Catalan citizens, amongst other controversial stances. According to the Catalan Government, this person cannot chair an institution that has to act as a referee between the different levels of government in Spain and that has to interpret the Constitution regarding very sensitive issues, such as Catalonia’s self-determination. For this reason, the Catalan Government demanded that Pérez de los Cobos be excluded from all the cases that involve the Catalan Executive.