SPAIN ended up being the only surviving fascist regime in Europe, with behind it a genocide of 300,000 people unprecedented in Europe.
As the Franco dictatorship was never defeated, when it was forced to evolve into a semblance of democracy, they ensured the survival of its essence by maintaining control of the judiciary, the army and the police .
In the EU, Spanish justice is considered comparable to that of other European states because it works reasonably well on most issues, except when it comes to the monarchy or the unity of the state. In these cases, it hints at the underlying Francoism, as happened with regard to the desire of the Catalan national minority who wants to live outside of this Spain that plunders and mistreats Catalonia. Regarding the Catalan independence project, justice is used as a political weapon, as Turkey does against the Kurds.
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But the EU does not realize this, because recently the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union, Richard de la Tour (contradicting the doctrine used until now by the European courts) considered that Belgium had not acted correctly in refusing the extradition of the Catalan exile Lluís Puig on the grounds that he would not receive a fair trial in Spain. It is clear that Spanish justice persecutes Catalan separatists and, in grotesque trials, condemns them inexorably as if they were violent terrorists, even though they acted in a completely peaceful manner.
And the impotence is total because it is especially the judicial direction which has this bias.
Something similar happens when it comes to spying with the Pegasus spyware program. The organization Citizen Lab has accredited cases of espionage in: Poland (three opposition politicians); Hungary (four journalists) and Spain (65 Catalan separatists, including seven lawyers!). But suddenly the Spanish president announced that he and some ministers had also been spied on a year ago with Pegasus, allegedly by Morocco. Why was he saying that now? And why was he taking the shame of having been spied on? It seems clear that this was in an attempt to cover up spying on independence supporters.
And the EU has accepted it because, in the commission that will study espionage with Pegasus, only Poland and Hungary have been singled out, and this commission will visit these two countries as well as Israel and the USA, but avoiding pointing fingers and visiting Spain.
The EU should avoid imposing on itself the straightjacket of non-interference in the face of the abuses of Spanish justice. On the contrary, this supra-state justice is the only one that can stop abusive justice in the EU. It is inappropriate because it wants to prevent, by abusive means, the legitimate aspiration of the Catalan people to decide their future.
Catalan exiles, led by President Carles Puigdemont, are waging a legal battle in Europe for justice. Their victory will serve to put an end to Francoism in Spain and it will strengthen all European citizens, whereas if Francoism is allowed to continue in Spain, all of Europe will suffer.
Jordi Oriola Folch Barcelona, Catalonia
We are back to 300 years of disunity thanks to Westminster’s divide and conquer tactic. The truth is that history has recorded what they did. There is no legal argument or legitimacy in English government or sovereignty over three nations.
Glen Peters Paisley