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‘There is no impartiality’

Catalan president calls for investigation after leaked emails reveal Spanish judges insulting and making jibes and threats against independence movement

The anti-independence phobia on behalf of the Spanish judiciary was revealed yesterday with the leaking of emails between judges from all over Spain insulting the independence movement, poking fun at the national day celebrations and comparing political leaders with Nazis.

“Separatist flu”, “nationalist germ”, “virus” and “coup plotters” are some of the disrespectful terms used by some judges in a forum of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), the body that governs the Spanish judiciary, to which the digital publications Eldiario.es and El Món had access.

Comments by judges in various email threads spoke of the “virus of hate” that had “infected” local people they knew in Catalonia, while others accused Mossos d’Esquadra police officers of “looking at them differently.” Another judge worried about his children wanting to take part in the “idiocies” of the demonstrations on Catalonia’s national day.

The list of denigrating comments, jibes and threats is long, and Catalan president Quim Torra publicly condemned the “absolute absence of impartiality” in the chats and called for the immediate resignation of the CGPJ president, Carlos Lesmes. Torra also called for an investigation to take place.

“There is no judicial independence, nor impartiality, nor integrity. Today the citizens of our country are defenceless before the Spanish judicial system,” said Torra, who called the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, to demand he take action. However, from Salzburg, Sánchez responded saying “I don’t talk about chats.”

Nevertheless, Torra said he would complain to the EU’s commissioner for justice, and he again called for jailed political leaders to be released and exiled officials to be allowed to return.

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