CATALAN President Quim Torra has called for the resignation of the head of the judiciary after leaked correspondence between judges described the independence movement as Nazis.
Torra said the emails, published by the newspapers eldiario.es and El Món, illustrated the absence of judicial independence amongst a broad sector of the justiciary and undermined “the most basic principles that justice must exercise”.
He called for the resignation of Carlos Lesmes, president of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) and an investigation by the attorney general, along with the “immediate release of the people unjustly imprisoned” during the independence campaign and the annulment of all proceedings relating to it.
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The messages were exchanged in a legal forum, in which one judge wrote: “This coup d’état should end with winners and losers.”
Another said there should be no “negotiation nor dialogue” with pro-independence leaders, while a third likened the situation in Catalonia to “the one in Germany in the 30s ... pure Nazism”.
Yet another judge said: “With putschists there is no negotiating, there is no dialogue.”
“These events are extraordinarily serious and show a total lack of impartiality of a wide part of the Spanish judicial system,” said Torra.
“If we had any confidence left in Spain’s justice system, today it’s completely gone. There is no judicial independence, nor impartiality not integrity. Catalans are defenceless in front of the Spanish judiciary. There is no legal security for pro-independence supporters in Spain.”
Catalan justice minister, Ester Capella, said: “This is obvious insults, insults and hate speech for ideological reasons, which leave no room for the indispensable impartiality of the judiciary.”
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She said that while she respected the work of the “great majority” of judges, she told Lesmes he had the judiciary’s reputation in his hands.
Spanish president Pedro Sánchez, speaking in Salzburg, said he trusted the independence and impartiality of the judiciary.
The row came on the first anniversary of one of the most important days of the independence drive, when Spain launched the first major police operation to try to halt the referendum.
Tens of thousands of people responded to raids on government offices by taking to the streets, triggering events that ended with the incarceration of several campaign leaders who are still in prison awaiting trial.
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