0
Interview
1 March 2015 2.00 h

Blueprint for a new country?

The Barcelona judge has become the object of persecution by state authorities since heading a group of legal experts that have drawn up a proposal for a Catalan constitution

'We share the objective of producing a single text for all Catalans'
'The process of modification to the model we propose is simple'
The Con­sejo Gen­eral del Poder Ju­di­cial (CGPJ) opened pro­ceed­ings against you when it learnt you were in­volved in the con­sti­tu­tional pro­posal. Are you wor­ried about your ca­reer?
I don't think it will af­fect the final de­ci­sion. They have known since De­cem­ber 19 that the doc­u­ment was prac­ti­cally fin­ished and that the legal team would pre­sent it in Jan­u­ary. I sup­pose we will have news of their de­ci­sion in Feb­ru­ary.
Is there a chance of bring­ing the three con­sti­tu­tional pro­pos­als to­gether?
One of the first things we did when we learnt that there were two other groups work­ing on this issue was to meet and talk. That was in No­vem­ber. Since then we have had a num­ber of meet­ings. We share the same ob­jec­tive of pro­duc­ing a sin­gle text, not only for the three work­ing groups, but for all Cata­lans.
How have the gov­ern­ment and the po­lit­i­cal par­ties re­acted?
Our de­ci­sion was al­ways a pri­vate one and we did not want to in­volve any in­sti­tu­tional or­gan­i­sa­tion. How­ever, we did tell the gov­ern­ment, the par­ties and other bod­ies, such as the As­sem­blea Na­cional Cata­lana, Òmnium Cul­tural, Súmate and Procés Con­stituent of our ini­tia­tive.
Have you re­ceived any type of di­rec­tion about the pro­posal?
None at all, nei­ther from in­struc­tions, which we would not have ac­cepted, nor any type of input. The par­ties and other bod­ies know what we are doing and, once the pub­lic has helped us with its con­tri­bu­tions, we will pre­sent the fin­ished pro­ject.
To the gov­ern­ment?
The idea is to pre­sent it to the civil bod­ies, be­cause they are the ones who have led this process. De­pend­ing on how the process evolves, we do not rule any­thing out. In prin­ci­ple, it seems bet­ter to hand over the pro­posal to the civil bod­ies so that they can then make sure it gets to par­lia­ment or the gov­ern­ment.
Your pro­posal is in­spired by other con­sti­tu­tional mod­els. Which ones?
Mainly the Swiss. The Swiss con­sti­tu­tion is very in­ter­est­ing be­cause it al­lows many pos­si­bil­i­ties for cit­i­zen par­tic­i­pa­tion. More­over, it is a text de­signed for a pluri-na­tional state; Switzer­land in re­al­ity is a fed­er­a­tion. And, given the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the Span­ish state, it seems to us that this could be a first step to­wards fa­cil­i­tat­ing things if in the fu­ture we end up with some sort of agreed so­lu­tion with the state. The process of mod­i­fi­ca­tion to the model that we pro­pose is rel­a­tively sim­ple, not like the Span­ish con­sti­tu­tion, which is prac­ti­cally un­touch­able. If at some point other na­tion­al­i­ties on the penin­sula, such as the Basque Coun­try or Gali­cia, de­cide to fol­low suit, we could be faced with a sce­nario of a con­fed­er­a­tion of states.
Sim­pli­fi­ca­tion of the process of con­sti­tu­tional re­form, recog­ni­tion of the right to de­cide, sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers, greater con­trol over elected posts... The re­cent sov­er­eignty process has af­fected the con­tents of your pro­posal it seems.
With­out doubt it has af­fected it. Since 2010, a lot has hap­pened in Cat­alo­nia. Our coun­try has changed a lot, as has civil so­ci­ety and, for­tu­nately, the po­lit­i­cal par­ties, many of which have adapted to the cri­te­ria and ob­jec­tives of the pub­lic.
Lim­ited terms in of­fice, the oblig­a­tion to de­clare in­ter­ests be­fore tak­ing of­fice, the pos­si­bil­ity of pub­lic in­ter­ven­tion... In a nor­mal coun­try are these fail­safe mech­a­nisms for pub­lic of­fice needed?
In Nordic con­sti­tu­tions, for ex­am­ple, it is dif­fi­cult to find many ref­er­ences to so­ci­ety's con­trol over politi­cians. Why? Be­cause they are eth­i­cal so­ci­eties with rel­a­tively lit­tle cor­rup­tion. Their so­cial and po­lit­i­cal con­text is very dif­fer­ent from what we sadly have in Cat­alo­nia. To hide our prob­lems of cor­rup­tion would be a mis­take. Yet, con­trol mech­a­nisms on the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the fu­ture re­pub­lic does not mean that we must doubt their hon­esty. The mech­a­nisms that we pro­pose are some­thing like an anti-fraud of­fice or an in­de­pen­dent pros­e­cu­tor; their very ex­is­tence has a dis­sua­sive ef­fect.
You pro­pose that the fu­ture con­sti­tu­tion only be put for­ward after the Sep­tem­ber 27 elec­tions. If the pop­u­la­tion votes in favour of in­de­pen­dence, you es­tab­lish an in­terim term of a year. Why is that?
It is the mar­gin that we con­sider es­sen­tial so that the fu­ture gov­ern­ment of the re­pub­lic can ne­go­ti­ate Cat­alo­nia's in­te­gra­tion into in­ter­na­tional or­gan­i­sa­tions and con­di­tions. It would be a year to con­sol­i­date the coun­try's in­ter­nal struc­tures and to allow the new state to find its place in the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity.
Sign in. Sign in if you are already a verified reader. I want to become verified reader. To leave comments on the website you must be a verified reader.
Note: To leave comments on the website you must be a verified reader and accept the conditions of use.

Published on

Most Viewed