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The Catalan Ombudsman meets with the European Commissioner for Human Rights to expose the situation of rights violation in Spain

The Catalan Ombudsman, Rafael Ribó, was to Strasbourg on Tuesday, June 19, to meet with the new Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe, Dunja Mijatović. The Catalan Ombudsman expressed his concern about the precariousness of democracy in Spain over the last years, and especially in relation to the Catalan conflict. Specifically, he has delivered the report that he has recently submitted to the Parliament of Catalonia. Report on the violation of fundamental rights and freedoms arising from the criminal justice reaction following October 1, and application of article 155 of the Spanish Constitution

Ribó also explained the main points of the report to several members of the Council of Europe with whom he met previously: Günter Schirmer, Head of Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Secretariat of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Europe; Christos Giakoumpoulos, of the Directorate of Human Rights and the Rule of Law, and Hugh Chetwynd, head of section of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture.

In addition, he has requested the organizations with whom he has met to verify that the Spain fulfils the commitment to carry out an investigation for the police batton chargeson the 1st October. In particular, it refers to the commitment that the former Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister, Alfonso Dastis, acquired with the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland, as part of a meeting.

According to the report, the abusive and disproportionate use of the cautionary measure of pre-trial incarceration is perhaps the most flagrant violation of fundamental rights in this situation

Likewise, the dissolution by article 155 of the Parliament and the removal of over 250 senior officials of the government, including the president of the Catalan Government and the entire Executive Council, have a direct impact on the right to political participation recognized in Article 23 of the Spanish Constitution, in two ways: on one hand, the rights of ousted public officials and representatives whose dismissal followed the premature dissolution of the Parliament are impaired; and, on the other, citizens’ rights to political participation, in general, are also impaired as the representatives they have elected have not been able to take office to serve the terms for which they were elected.

The right to political participation was also affected by the acts that, after the elections of December 21, blocked some of the candidates who had been elected, and who were in possession of their political rights, from standing as candidates for the presidency of the Catalan Government, in the process of investiture meant to form a new government.

The regression of freedom of expression and the rights of assembly and demonstration are not limited to pro-independence expressions or demonstrations in Catalonia, but are of a wider scope, and are being applied to different forms of protest and dissidence.

Last, on several occasions throughout the period covered in this report, and especially on October 1, 2017, the Spanish Civil Guard and the Spanish National Police Corps acted in a manner that could be considered disproportionate, and caused damage greater than that which they supposedly sought to prevent. Especially serious is the fact that on October 1 State law enforcement agencies used rubber bullet.

In the report Human rights regression: Elected officials’ freedom of expression and the separation of powers in the kingdom of Spain, the Catalan Ombudsman already alerted in April 2017 of the erosion of the separation of powers in Spain and its effects on democratic principles.

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