Catalan government to file charges against judge, police for interrogating civil servants

BarcelonaAfter the Guardia Civil (Spanish gendarmerie) took statements this Wednesday from the general secretary of the Catalan Presidency ministry, Joaquim Nin, and the director general of Public Services for the Catalan government, Jordi Graells, the minister for the Presidency and spokesman, Jordi Turull, gave a press conference to announce that he has instructed the Catalan government’s legal service to bring a complaint before the court for a "violation of fundamental rights".

According to Turull, the Catalan government will file a legal complaint not only against the instructing judge, but also against the Guardia Civil and all those who "are involved in or endorsing this sweeping legal action", as he considers that they are "abusing the gag order" leaving those who have been called to testify without defence.

As an example of this defencelessness, he cited Nin, who started this Wednesday as a case witness for having authorised the setup of the website for the National Pact for the Referendum but, halfway through his statement, the Guardia Civil informed him that he was now being treated as a person of interest in their investigation.

The minister for the Presidency stressed that the case was opened after a lawsuit filed by Vox, a Spanish far-right political party, over the Santi Vidal affair, against the former judge and Treasury secretary Lluís Salvadó, as well as the president of the Institute of Self-governance Studies, Carles Viver i Pi-Sunyer. They have been charged with embezzlement, disobedience, revealing secrets, conspiracy, proposing sedition and rebellion against the peace and independence of the State.

Then, the gag order was issued. A mechanism which, according to Turull, is being misused "to turn a very specific complaint into sweeping legal action against those in Catalonia who want to vote". He warned Spain that it shouldn’t assume that "it can do whatever it wants, however it wants". "The Catalan government says enough is enough", he concluded.

In fact, Turull noted that the investigation is based on the website of the National Pact for the Referendum, an organisation which aimed for terms for the vote to be negotiated with Madrid, for which he considers that "working in favour of a pact, of dialogue and agreement" is being "criminalised".