I am using this as my source: http://www.elnacional.cat/en/politics/key-points-law-transitional-jurisprudence_186297_102.html
Looking at that, it appears that it’s basically establishing a government independent from Spain, which doesn’t surprise me for a state that wants independence. It’s not ending <the> rule of law, it is ending <Spain’s> rule of law over Catalonia and establishing its own rule of law.
I’m not seeing the deterioration of separation of powers here.
I’m not certain Madrid can win this one.
Calling an illegal referendum pretty much guarantees the independence side will win or substantially increase the margin (after all, who on the No side wants to risk legitimizing the referendum). A
t that point, declare independence unilaterally, and you’re pretty much guaranteed that if the central state doesn’t strongly react, fear and uncertainty, if not the more “enthusiastic” supporters of the the Catalan ethno-state, will “encourage” the “foreigners” to leave, all without any explicit violent activity by the political separatists.
If the central state does react strongly? Well, we see how well that’s going…
I suspect that Madrid may be best off negotiating what rights it can for the the Spanish who choose to remain in Catalonia and, if it is very lucky, trying to negotiate some compensation for the non-Catalan refugees who flee back to Spain.
Personally, I find the justification for the creation of new states using shared ethnic ancestry to be somewhat incompatible with modern mores (at least for ethnicities not suffering from oppression). I understand it, but it leaves me feeling a bit queasy.
Of course, being a hypocrite, I suppose I’m okay with older states that got “grandfathered” in.
When you pass a law that contravenes existing superior laws, your oath, and your own legal mandate, you are breaking with the rule of law. When you ignore the rulings of courts of law, you are breaking with the separation of powers. The law was also passed by a narrow parliamentary majority that did not represent a majority of the voters that voted in the last elections, and was passed breaking with existing parliamentary rules.
The Spanish Government is acting in order to defend the laws and the fundamental rights of Spanish citizens living inside and outside of Catalonia.
And they’re wrong. People have a fundamental right to self-determination.
The thing is, in practice, it’s extremely hazardous to let people vote on a question unless you’re fully prepared to accept any outcome. Democratic governments can’t say, on the one hand “you must obey our laws and pay our taxes because you voted for us”, and on the other hand “…but that vote didn’t count”. Even if you can bring out lawyers to explain how it’s actually not the same, that will make close to zero practical difference.
That’s why, for example, the UK government is now actively working to fly the country into the ground, even though everyone knows it’s a bad idea, because a non-binding referendum appeared to demand it. The only solution would be to not have that referendum in the first place, which is why it’s so imperative that David Cameron be executed.
Sending police to shoot voters was clearly a stupid response, but I don’t think the Spanish government was wrong to think that if they weren’t prepared to accept immediate Catalan independence, they couldn’t permit the vote.
The right to self-determination does not necessarily mean the right to form an independent state, even if we were to accept that Catalonians constitute a separate people. Catalonians are not dependents, they are full Spanish citizens, and they already enjoy a very wide-ranging autonomy and self-government.
Considering that the Spaniards tried to wipe out Catalan language and culture well within living memory, I’m not sure that applies here.
That’s an interesting way to describe a massive and brutal police assault on thousands of non-violent people.
It may be that many of the Boing Boing regulars have an idealized and romanticized view of revolutions, but I can tell you that my side of the family endured through five different “revolutions” in the 1930s in Spain, and they did not have such a rosy view. Some of my relatives became refugees, and most escaped from their town in order to avoid the fight. I can still remember the terror in my mother’s voice when she recalled those times, as she was left behind in a town occupied first by anarchists that killed many religious and conservative people, then by communists, and the by the francoist Moorish troops. Spain has suffered many civil wars during her history, and also Catalonia. It could be that they are due for the next one, but I hope not.
How much autonomy they should enjoy is up to them, not you. You have the right to attempt to peacefully convince them to stay, but the moment you try to use violence to force them, you become a villain that needs to be put down.
And for the last 30+ years the Catalan regional Government has tried to suppress Spanish, the first language of the majority of the people currently living in Catalonia. Parents in Catalonian public schools do not have a choice of what the main language of education should be for their kids. In the other hand, Spanish has been used in Catalonia at least since the XVI century, and Catalan was publicly used in Catalonia during Franco’s dictatorship.
It is not up to them. In Spain, as it is in France, Germany, Italy, the United States and most other countries, the sovereignty resides on the whole people of the Nation. For example, from the French Constitution:
France shall be an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic. … National sovereignty shall vest in the people, who shall exercise it through their representatives and by means of referendum. … No section of the people nor any individual may arrogate to itself, or to himself, the exercise thereof.
The right to self determination is fundamental, and supersedes any law. Any law that bars secession is ipso facto invalid.
Secession, obviously, means the people are rejecting that constitution.
Some basic research shows that is not true.
http://scholar.oxy.edu/urc_student/909/
That might also inform why schools are bent on teaching Catalan now.
You are just making that up. That is not how International Law works. It may be your opinion, but it is not based on current, accepted International Law.
It is how the world works. If people do not want to associate with you, you can’t force them to.
Did you assume I was addressing you? I wonder why.
You can stop emphasizing “illegal” independence referendums or revolutions. The vast majority of revolutions were NOT legal by the parent country’s laws, that simple, including the American Revolution.
