Junts per Catalunya and Esquerra Republicana have celebrated as "a new victory for the independence movement" the order issued today by the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court that has declared the criminal responsibility for the 1-O of the ERC leader and former vice president of the Generalitat, Oriol Junqueras, the general secretary of JxCat and former councilor, Jordi Turull, and the also former councilors of the Government Dolors Bassa and Raül Romeva, extinguished.
"The TS has no choice but to sign the capitulation, they have dedicated time, resources and inventiveness to avoid it, but the amnesty will reach everyone," Carles Puigdemont said on social networks after hearing the news.
The leader of Junts and president of the autonomous government that organized the illegal referendum of October 1, 2017 is one of the leaders of the process that is waiting for the High Court to apply the law of criminal oblivion, presumably, in the near future.
For his part, Turull has welcomed the "new victory of the independence movement" that the judicial decision represents. "We forced the amnesty to demonstrate that voting for the independence of Catalonia is not and can never be a crime," said the number two of the neo-convergents, for whom the Amnesty Law "is not forgiveness, but justice."
In an address to the media from the party headquarters, Turull has accused the magistrates, whom he once again called "la toga nostra" of "having acted more as vigilantes than as judges." "They have had to surrender to the obvious and democratic reasons and now they are trying to justify themselves so as not to be accused of prevarication because they knew perfectly well that they had to apply the law," said the former advisor and spokesperson for the Generalitat.
Turull has shown his party's satisfaction for "not having given up on those who claimed that it was impossible to approve an amnesty" for those prosecuted for the independence process. Even so, the general secretary of JxCat has stressed that this sentiment "will not be complete" until it is also applied to exiles [Puigdemont and former councilors Toni Comín and Lluís Puig].
However, Turull wanted to make it clear that "the political conflict has not ended" and that now there are "more reasons" to support independence than in 2017, since "Catalans voted massively to have their own State and Spain did not respond with seduction, but with repression."
Esquerra has also celebrated the application of the amnesty to its president and Bassa and Romeva, two former councilors belonging to its ranks in 2017. "Finally justice has been done where there was only injustice," Junqueras has claimed on social networks nine years after the 1-O referendum and the subsequent unilateral declaration of independence in the Parliament.
In his brief text, the republican leader has added three words: "Ambition, country and future [a term he has written in capital letters]", a message that could refer to the fact that, from now on, the four amnestied can now hold public office again. Be that as it may, the leader plans to appear this afternoon from the party headquarters in Barcelona to assess the criminal forgetfulness of the process together with Bassa and Romeva.
The former leaders of 1-O could stand for election because disqualification no longer weighs on them as the crime of embezzlement is amnestied following the resolution of the Supreme Court.
For their part, the pro-independence party has also referred to the application of the amnesty, again criticizing the actions of Justice over these years: "We have fought and we have achieved it. The amnesty is a victory for the independence movement and is finally a reality with all the Spanish powers against it. Voting can never be a crime." "Catalonia's desire for freedom never ends," the party has concluded in defense of self-determination.
