The Constitutional Court upholds the pre-trial detention of Sànchez, Forcadell, Romeva, Rull and Turull

The Constitutional Court rejects the appeals presented by Jordi Sànchez and Carme Forcadell (dismissed on 15 January), Raül Romeva (dismissed on 13 February), and Jordi Turull and Josep Rull (dismissed on 25 February) against the pre-trial detention ordered by judge Pablo Llarena in the case against the leaders of the 1 October referendum. Almost two years have passed since the submission of the appeals and the prisoners are no longer in pre-trial detention, which means they were prevented from being able to challenge it before ECHR while it was in force. In the case of Sànchez, Romeva, Rull and Turull (all of them members of Parliament in March 2018) and as had already happened in the case of Junqueras, three Constitutional Court judges (Fernando Valdés, Juan Antonio Xiol and María Luisa Balaguer) dissent, arguing that the restriction of the right to political representation that pre-trial detention entailed was not justified, especially in the case of Turull, who was imprisoned in the middle of the plenary session that was to vote on his investiture as president of the Government of Catalonia. The Constitutional Court also dismisses the appeal presented by Sànchez against Llarena’s decision not to grant him a prison leave to attend the investiture session that was supposed to take place on 12 March 2018.