The Constitutional Court does not overturn the punishment of Jordi Sànchez for messages during the 21 December election campaign

The plenary session of the Constitutional Court rejects Jordi Sànchez’s appeal against the Soto del Real Disciplinary Commission’s decision to ban him from going out to the prison yard for 30 days as punishment for having recorded a telephone message for a JxCat rally in the 2017 Catalan elections. For the first time in relation to the prisoners’ appeals for protection, the decision of the plenary session is not unanimous: three judges (Fernando Valdés, Juan Antonio Xiol and María Luisa Balaguer) find that the appeal should have been admitted and believe that the majority has chosen to reject it ‘to prevent the Court from having to rule on the merits of the arguments concerning fundamental rights invoked in the claim. Certainly in the knowledge that it would have been an affirmative ruling […]’. A few weeks later, under pressure from the rest of the members of the court, the three judges ‘correct’ their dissenting vote, removing the paragraph in which they stated that the plenary session had chosen not to admit the appeal in order to avoid ruling on the merits of the matter.