Scotland: Catalan separatist combating Spanish extradition case

Glasgow, Scotland – To her supporters, she is the underdog taking up the could per chance of the Spanish authorities; to her detractors, she is a fugitive from justice.

Clara Ponsati is the frail education minister of Spain’s northeastern situation of Catalonia and a most recent economics lecturer at Scotland’s College of St Andrews.

The Sixty one-12 months-passe bespectacled politician and academic professor voluntarily handed herself in to an Edinburgh police design in March following Madrid’s quiz and is in the in the meantime out on bail.

She is combating extradition from Scotland to Spain after a European arrest warrant became as soon as issued by Madrid on charges of insurrection and the misuse of public funds in closing 12 months’s « illegal » Catalonian independence ballot.

The pro-independence Catalan figure is scheduled to face an extradition court hearing at Edinburgh Sheriff Court docket on Could 15 earlier than a paunchy two-week hearing this summer season when she is anticipated to be taught her fate.

« She has to prefer a bar to extradition, most of that are enlighten out in the Extradition Act or in the Human Rights Act, as to why she could per chance quiet no longer be forcibly removed and taken to Spain, » Karen Todner, an internationally valuable human rights attorney from Britain, told Al Jazeera.

Judicial protections

Scotland, a nation of 5.4 million folks, with a devolved parliament, is the second largest of the UK’s 4 constituent countries with its distinctive merely machine.

Ponsati’s future will hinge on judicial protections and whether or no longer the costs are acceptable underneath Scottish guidelines.

Scotland is 4 years on from its possess independence referendum. Then, these in favour of staying in the union prevailed, a success the vote with 55 percent.

Despite this setback for the pro-independence camp, constitutional politics stay entrance and centre in Scottish political discourse – and Ponsati’s case has galvanised many Scottish independence supporters into motion.

These include Pilar Fernandez, a pro-self option campaigner from Galicia, Spain – whose husband is Scottish and travels there ceaselessly – and who supported the Scottish independence creep in 2014.

Fancy her compatriots, she contends that the costs in opposition to Ponsati are politically motivated after the Catalonia independence referendum became as soon as blocked by the Madrid executive and Constitutional Court docket and deemed illegal.

« The Spanish executive has been warding off the probability to search out a political resolution, » Fernandez told Al Jazeera from her home in Galicia.

« So, they keep this converse in the hands of the judiciary … nonetheless here’s a political converse, so it wants a political resolution. »

Devotees of independence

Ponsati’s merely predicament has on a routine foundation considered devotees of Scottish independence following the Catalan to her merely hearings in Edinburgh to mask their enhance.

« The pro-independence creep [in Scotland] is making an strive to defend the image that Clara Ponsati represents, » stated Fernandez.

« And that’s democracy, liberty, the magnificent to resolve your possess future and freedom of speech in opposition to a Spanish executive that is terribly end to the foundations of [former Spanish dictator] Franco. »

Ponsati became as soon as no longer the finest Catalan political figure who became as soon as the sphere of a European arrest warrant from Madrid.

Carles Puigdemont, the deposed Catalan president, is in the in the meantime in exile in Germany.

Lawful closing week, he refused to be re-appointed as chief of the situation, asserting in a video message: « The intolerance and the shortage of recognize of the [Spanish] enlighten in the direction of the necessity of the electorate of Catalonia personal regarded clearly in the eyes of the sphere. »

Many Spaniards – seriously unionists – take cramped sympathy for the likes of Ponsati.

Alfonso Valero is most major lecturer and global manager at England’s Nottingham Regulations College, Nottingham Trent College.

He contends that the enhance from Scottish independence supporters in the direction of Ponsati, whose attorney stated she could per chance perhaps withstand 30 years in penitentiary in Spain, is « misconceived ».

He added that if she had been to prevail in success in defeating the European arrest warrant, it could per chance per chance per chance perhaps enhance many laborious questions.

« If the choice of the Scottish courts became as soon as that they weren’t going to verbalize Clara Ponsati, the message could per chance perhaps be that the European Union has a converse with the mutual recognition of court orders, » stated Valero.

« On fable of here’s nothing to raise out with the Spanish executive, here’s to raise out with a capture in the Supreme Court docket in Spain soliciting for the beginning of a person that wants to be keep to trial. »

‘An uphill fight’

Todner says that Ponsati faces an « uphill fight » if she is to prevail, because it is miles « most regularly very advanced to defeat a European arrest warrant ».

« The entire cause of the machine became as soon as to facilitate the easy transfer of defendants between countries, » she stated.

Alternatively, Todner provides that if Ponsati could per chance perhaps mask that the costs are politically motivated, she could per chance perhaps take her case.

However, due to Scotland’s separate merely machine, Todner sounded a phrase of warning.

« What wants to be understood is that, if she defeats that European arrest warrant, which became as soon as made to Scotland, or no longer it is quiet out there in every other European country. »

She persevered: « If she left Scotland and came to England, then she could per chance face the court cases in every single assign again. »