CGPJ falls into its own trap

The Consejo General del Poder Judicial (CGPJ) was yesterday incapable of changing its intolerable political attitude. Despite the lengthy deliberation of the council meeting, it did not prevent the purging of the Catalan judge Santiago Vidal, not for anything he has done but for what he thinks. The attack against freedom of expression that this decision represents is undoubted. The fact that the result of the disputed CGPJ session ended in a three-year suspension rather than the life ban widely predicted is proof that the judicial body realised the gravity of what it was doing. However, the realisation came too late and the council did not have the necessary lucidity to stop the pressure that has built up since the process began.

The CGPJ decision adds another argument to justify the belief held by a large part of the Catalan public that the Spanish State is not only not a political and national body that benefits the country, but is in fact a clear threat to all sorts of freedoms, of organisation, of expression, of thought. Nevertheless, Santiago Vidal (who readers can send support through the El Punt Avui website) will not become another martyr in the long list of victims of Spanish injustice, because for the first time, the people of Catalonia will have in their hands the real possibility of freeing themselves from the yoke of a State that is against them. 27-S provides an opportunity to prevent more victims of incomprehension, more citizens persecuted for defending an option so profoundly democratic and civilised as putting forward a participative proposal for a constitution.