The general secretaries of the two main unions in the country, Unai Sordo from CCOO and Pepe Álvarez, from UGT, have signed, with 72 jurists from different provinces (professors of criminal law, magistrates and lawyers) a statement in which they express their “intense concern” about “the latest interpretations made by some Courts and Tribunals, on the scope of the crime of terrorism”. They refer, specifically, to the Supreme Court’s ruling of February 29, 2024 by which the high court assumed the task of investigating Carles Puigdemont in the so-called Democratic Tsunami case, for one of the crimes not included in the amnesty law, that is, terrorism that has intentionally caused “serious human rights violations.”
Contrary to the opinion of the Prosecutor’s Office, the Supreme Court understands that “a plurality of indications” point to the “absolute leadership” and “intellectual authorship” of the former Catalan president in the 2019 riots that followed the conviction of the process and which caused the El Prat airport to collapse. They argue that “terrorism is not, and cannot be, a static phenomenon, but rather it expands and diversifies gradually and constantly, in a wide range of activities, so that the democratic criminal legislator, in the obligatory response to this complex phenomenon, must also expand the criminal area of behaviour that objectively must be considered terrorist”. For CCOO, UGT and these 72 jurists, among whom are Adela Asúa, who was a judge of the Constitutional Court at the proposal of the PSOE; Juan Antoni Lascuraín Sánchez, professor of criminal law who has criticised the amnesty law; or Nicolás Sartorius, imprisoned during the dictatorship for the 1001 trial, the Supreme Court’s decision is “out of all proportion” and they warn that “an extensive, imprecise or lacking rigour interpretation can lead to an application that ends up damaging fundamental rights that must be protected”. For example, applying the same qualification, that of terrorism, “to the tractor rides of farmers, to the road blockades by organized transporters and to the workers in their strikes and demonstrations, despite being carried out in the exercise of a fundamental right.”
The manifesto recalls that the European Union “has been adapting the criteria”, but at no time “has the essence of terrorism been modified, which are precisely the crimes capable of generating terror in the population”. They argue that, in fact, “a new terrorism” has appeared, that of “a jihadist nature with revenge objectives and a political-religious orientation”, with attacks as atrocious as that of 11-M and that in these cases “the severity of the sentences, the restrictions of rights and preventive intervention” are justified. The disturbances following the sentencing of the processwhich they do not mention directly, cannot be included in that same category and they understand that this “extensive” interpretation made by the Supreme Court judges is due to the fact that the classification of the crime of terrorism in Spain “is not sufficiently clear”, which is why they urge the parliamentary groups to promote a reform of article 573 of the Penal Code, adapting it to European regulations.
What matters most is what happens closer to home. To make sure you don’t miss anything, subscribe.
KEEP READING
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_
#UGT #CCOO #lawyers #warn #risk #classifying #riots #Catalonia #terrorism