Spain Will Remove Catalonia Leader, Escalating Secession Crisis

Discussion in 'Current Events' started by TRFjr, Oct 21, 2017.

  1. Angrytaxpayer

    Angrytaxpayer Banned

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    Wow. How did you come to that paranoid delusion? What rights has he taken away from American citizens?
     
  2. Plus Ultra

    Plus Ultra Well-Known Member

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    Unfortunately the Constitutional Court required Puigdemont obtain Supreme Court authorization, and that this request be made in person to Judge Llarena.
    It is disturbing those two Esquerra delegates in exile didn’t resign as well, if there isn’t unanimity among the separatists Puigdemont may not have the votes. We’ll see what happens in 16 hours.
     
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2018
  3. Plus Ultra

    Plus Ultra Well-Known Member

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    Postponed!
    Torrent also asked the regional government’s attorneys to prepare a full report with dates and deadlines for the election of Puigdemont.
    The regional government’s applicable laws contemplate a situation where the candidate lacks adequate support, which apparently is not the case with Puigdemont who is unelectable because he is absent.
     
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2018
  4. Plus Ultra

    Plus Ultra Well-Known Member

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    Torrent’s decision to postpone the electoral assembly has angered separatist factions who found this excessively submissive to Spain's Constitutional Court.
    Remember Torrent is with the Esquerra party which has 32 delegates in the regional government, Puigdemont's JxCat party has 34 delegates, Torrent is the second most powerful member of the government (right behind the president -if ever elected).
    The constitutionalists are generally pleased, obviously this is a setback for the separatists and it reaffirms their position that the Constitution must be upheld.
     
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2018
  5. Plus Ultra

    Plus Ultra Well-Known Member

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    The underlying issue is that the separatists of all factions appreciate how continued application of Art.155 undermines the commitment to separatism of the region’s institutions. Madrid is searching through their records for evidence of involvement in the separatist process (and there is plenty). Regional institutions involved in education, communications and interior were directly involved in the outlawed referendum, they unlawfully applied public resources and manpower, and Madrid is gathering evidence of this. The continued application of Art.155 risks more evidence being gathered against Puigdemont’s Administration.

    Additionally, as long as Art.155 is applied, regional institutions cannot be used to advance the separatist cause, and their administration from Madrid erodes the notion the regional government has any authority or provides anything of value to the citizenry. Moreover, it is humiliating to separatists to have their institutions managed from afar. Some separatists have come to the view it would be preferable to recover control of their regional institutions with a substitute for Puigdemont.
     
  6. Plus Ultra

    Plus Ultra Well-Known Member

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    Torrent rejected a JxCat proposal for legislative reform to enable Puigdemont’s election in absentia. JxCat drafted a proposed law that would enable the remote appearance, debate and election of Puigdemont, their proposal also would have allowed Puigdemont to remotely appear, preside over and vote in any sort of regional government meeting or assembly.

    http://www.elmundo.es/cataluna/2018/02/13/5a82eac1e5fdea902b8b463a.html

    Evidently Esquerra and JxCat are not working very well together in this separatist coalition, I think this will drag on until the end of March, then they’ll dissolve Parlament and call for new elections, hopefully legal proceedings will have advanced enough to disqualify Puigdemont by then.
     
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2018
  7. Plus Ultra

    Plus Ultra Well-Known Member

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    Polls show impasse remains:
     
  8. Plus Ultra

    Plus Ultra Well-Known Member

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    The Spanish Supreme Court has ordered the arrest and incarceration of at least five separatist politicians from Catalonian previously out on bail, one is in Swiss exile (Marta Rovira, Esquerra's Secretary General). The Court apparently has reconsidered and finds their flight risk too great. One of the arrested (Turrul) was the third choice of the prevailing separatist coalition for regional president (after they discarded Puigdemont as unelectable due to absence). About 20 protesters have been arrested in Barcelona in clashes with riot police.
     
  9. Plus Ultra

    Plus Ultra Well-Known Member

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    Basically the Spanish judiciary has decapitated the secessionist movement in Catalonia, they've outlawed secessionism and incarcerated all political figures who've openly advocated it. Nobody has been prosecuted yet, this is pending the completion of the investigation, but the basic facts are evident and it is fairly clear there are grounds if secessionism is illegal.

    Should advocacy for secession be illegal? I understand how this would naturally be illegal for a national state with a diverse population. The "nation-state" is a European concept that emerged gradually after various sovereigns consolidated authority over diverse ethnicities so that everyone within specified territorial boundaries were considered of a single nation. In many cases different ethnic groups came together gradually through trade and intermarriage, some communities succumbed to conquest and were assimilated, by the time the nation-state concept was fully developed there were associated ethnicities clearly associated with a sovereign state within specified boundaries.

    Subsequently we develop this notion of self-determination, by then the nation-state is a completely developed concept and self-determination is a feature. The nation-state is a community, within specified borders that governs itself with it's own system of government, has a military force capable of defending it from other nation-states, it's own currency and is recognized as sovereign by other nation-states. The self-determination concept, which was only implicit in the development of the nation state, resurges after World War II with the United Nation's effort to decolonize.

    Then self-determination becomes a requisite condition whereby communities governed from afar and without representation are deemed entitled to separate from whichever sovereign rules over them to govern themselves. This recognition led to the "emancipation" of most of Africa, territories in Asia and Latin America which until then remained under the rule of colonizing European sovereigns.

    Now the question is whether self-determination can be retroactively applied within a sovereign. To answer this one needs to disassemble the notion of sovereingty which is the most fundamental concept in international relations, one that premises the entire system of international relations and which when disassembled calls into question every treaty and all law among nations.
     

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