The conviction for embezzlement will allow the court to assess higher penalties than those now proposed by the Government
MADRID, 11 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Supreme Court (TS) will have to review the 13-year disqualification sentence of former Catalan vice president Oriol Junqueras, and the sentences of the other nine convicted of sedition due to the ‘procés’, when the repeal announced by the Government materializes, to see in which crime of the resulting Penal Code (CP) the facts already judged and sentenced fit and how they combine their penalties with those of embezzlement, since both crimes were linked in the ruling.
PSOE and Unidad Podemos have presented this Friday a proposal for an organic law to eliminate article 544 of the CP – which includes the crime of sedition, now punishable by between 10 and 15 years in prison and the same time of disqualification for the authorities that commit– to create a new type in 557 of “aggravated public disorders” where the punishment changes to between 3 and 5 years in prison and 6 and 8 years of disqualification.
This criminal reform will have a full impact on the sentence handed down in 2019 by the Second Chamber of the TS for the ‘process’. Of the twelve convicted, nine — Junqueras, Jordi Turull, Raül Romeva, Dolors Bassa, Carme Forcadell, Joaquim Forn, Josep Rull, Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart — were convicted of sedition and, of them, only four — Junqueras, Turull, Romeva and Bassa– also for embezzlement.
The legal sources consulted by Europa Press explain that, once the penal reform has been published in the Official State Gazette (BOE), the same court that judged and sentenced will meet ex officio to review the ruling regarding the nine convicted of sedition.
The first step will be to see in which crime of the new CP the facts that were considered proven in the ‘procés’ sentence fit. Once the criminal type has been identified, these sentences will be applied to the five sentenced only for sedition -Forcadell, Form, Rull, Sanchez and Cuixart–, but for the other four the magistrates will have to study how to combine the sentences of the selected crime to replace sedition with the penalties of embezzlement.
And this is so because Junqueras, Turull, Romeva and Bassa were convicted of sedition but in medial contest with embezzlement, which means that the court considered that they embezzled public funds to perpetrate the sedition.
The medial contest implies that it is not possible to sentence below the minimum sentence of the most serious crime that, after the disappearance of the current sedition -and if it were replaced by the future crime of aggravated public disorder- would be that of embezzlement.
The crime of embezzlement contemplates a criminal range that, in its most punishable type – when the economic damage exceeds 250,000 euros, as would be the case – ranges from 6 to 12 years in prison and from 10 to 20 years of disqualification.
The sources clarify that the magistrates would have to analyze how the sentences play –both prison and disqualification– of the crime that replaces sedition with those of embezzlement.
However, it should be remembered that those convicted of the ‘procés’ were pardoned by the Government, pardoning their prison sentences, but not those of disqualification, so the review carried out by the Supreme Court will only have practical effects on the latter .
It should be remembered that Junqueras was sentenced to 13 years in prison and disqualification; Turull, Romeva and Bassa, to 12 years in prison and disqualification; Forcadell, to 11 years and 6 months in prison and disqualification; Form and Rull, to 10 years and 6 months in prison and disqualification; and Sanchez and Cuixart, to 9 years in prison and disqualification.
