The prosecution has asked the Supreme Court to inadmita the challenge posed by the former chairperson of the Parliament Carme Forcadell, the president of Omnium, Jordi Cuixart, and the former member of the Board of the Parliament, Anna Simó against Manuel Marchena, the president of the tribunal that will prosecute pro-independence leaders and who they accuse of having links with the PP. The public ministry, in a written statement submitted before the high court, reiterates the arguments already used this Monday when asked who would reject the objection raised by six of those accused of rebellion in the cause of the procés.
The prosecution considers that there are no grounds for the setting aside of the tribunal to the president of the Criminal division, and ask the Supreme to reject the challenge. According to the public ministry, the attempt of the pro-independence leaders of keeping Marchena does not comply with any of the requirements applicable to the challenges and aims to “dilate” the conclusion of the trial.
MORE INFORMATION
Manuel Marchena, a man of confidence of the PP to control the volcano
In the case of Cuixart, the request for disqualification included, in addition to Marchena, the other six members of the court that will judge the procés: the judges Andrés Martínez Arrieta, Juan Ramón Berdugo, Luciano Varela, Antonio del Moral, Andrés Palomo and Ana Ferrer. In the opinion of the president of Omnium, all the court was contaminated by being members of the room that It presides over. The office of the prosecutor refuses this possibility. “If the cause of disqualification of the president becomes pilgrim and unfounded, as based on the speculation free of a third party, the extension by osmosis of the same heterorresponsabilidad Jokerbet to the magistrates members of the Room floods completely the character of reasons very personal which is inherent in all of challenge,” says the public prosecutor’s office. “Doesn’t converge to any cause that can hold its contamination subjective, challenge the president of the court, so that evil can spread the macula that is not there”, he adds.
The public ministry also reminds that “it is not enough that the doubts or suspicions about the impartiality of the judge that arise in the mind of the person who promotes the record, but that it is necessary to determine, on a case to case basis, if they reach a consistency such that it allows to affirm that they are objectively and legitimately justified”.
The prosecution also does not support the argument alleged by Cuixart that the recent judgment of the European Court of Human Rights condemned Spain for denying a fair trial to Arnaldo Otegi and four other leaders abertzales in the case Bateragune, on the attempt to reconstruct the National Board of the outlawed Herri Batasuna. Strasbourg gave the reason Otegi and considered that the trial in the National court did not comply with all the guarantees as the chair of the court judge Angela Murillo, who in march 2010 had been set aside by alleged lack of impartiality in a previous trial in which he was accused the leader of the nationalist. But according to the prosecution, this case “does not apply analogue” to the leaders of the procés because of Otegi is moved the lack of impartiality of the president to the rest of the court, while in this “the impartiality of the source is simply non-existent”.
