Spanish Court warns Catalan Government they can’t carry out plan for a unilateral referendum

The high court tells the executive that it has allowed the appeal against the motion on the referendum passed at the general policy debate

Maiol Roger / Núria Orriols
1 min
El TC avisa als membres del Govern que no poden executar el pla del referèndum unilateral

BarcelonaThe Spanish Constitutional Court notified all members of the Catalan government this Wednesday that is has allowed the Spanish government’s appeal against the referendum motion passed at the general policy debate in the Catalan parliament, as they regard it another consequence of the declaration of the initiation of the independence process of 9 November 2015 which the high court had ruled unconstitutional.

As such, the high court considers that all members of Carles Puigdemont’s cabinet are informed and aware of its decision and warns them that they can’t take any step towards executing the plan for the unilateral referendum on independence.

President Puigdemont himself sent a tweet announcing that he had received the notification with a message directed at the Spanish government: "Whoever wants to talk does so through politics and not through the courts".

Yesterday the court notified the members of the Board of the parliament, as well as deputies of the Cs, PSC and CSQP parties, of its acceptance of the appeal, but highlighted the Board directly as the parliamentary body responsible for controlling debates.

The notice was handed to the members of the government after midday, during a debate in the Plenary Assembly about a proposal from pro-independence CUP and JxSí, also supported by CSQP, in support of the freedom of expression and initiative of members of parliament. This was a resolution in favour of the actions of the parliament’s Speaker, Carme Forcadell, relating to the debate and the vote on the conclusions of the Constituent Process Study commission. Forcadell is under investigation, accused of disobedience for having on that occasion ignored, according to the Spanish government, another Constitutional Court ruling over the declaration of the intention of independence of 9 November 2015.

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