The money or your life

Dear Mr President Illa / Uncertainties and other absurdities

How many people will have to get infected on February 14 to be able to report the High Court for their irresponsibility?

Xavier Bosch
3 min

Dear Mr President Illa,

Once upon a time there was a country (from now on we will call it a region) that had a democratically elected president. Parliamentary arithmetic had allowed that, although his party was not the most voted force, he managed to gain more support than anyone else in Parliament. Suddenly, after having held a referendum on self-determination and issued a rough-and-ready proclamation of independence of walking around the house, a state law (we will call it Article 155) removed that president, dismissed all his cabinet and called for elections. The people voted again and, as democracy is stubborn, the citizens reiterated their confidence in the same president. But the State said that this candidate - who had escaped - was not suitable. A plan B was proposed, but he was in prison and was not given permission either. Plan C was set in motion with an investiture debate but, as if by chance, between the first and the second session, that presidential candidate was also imprisoned. The new president of the country -a publisher, how low we have fallen!- had to manage a foundering coalition government and a devastating pandemic. One day, because he disobeyed, because he did not remove in time a banner in a public building demanding freedom, he was also disqualified. The country was left without a president and an unstoppable countdown to new elections began. The date was practically automatically set: 14 February. The peak of the third wave of the virus, however, practically coincided with the voting and the vast majority of parliamentary parties decided, in the name of health, to postpone it by three months. The Courts, however, say that political representatives cannot decide this either. The date will be fixed again. At this rate, all we need to be told is who we are to vote for. In fact, we have a feeling that they have decided that for us too.

Uncertainties and other absurdities

The High Court of Justice of Catalonia considers that, for the time being, the elections to the Parliament must continue to be held on 14 February. Now, after this emergency precautionary resolution, the High court is starting to study it in depth and commits itself to decide before February 8 at the latest. That's really nice of them. On a Monday in February they will tell us whether we have to go and vote on the following Sunday or whether they have decided, in a bout of common sense, that they do not want to put our lives at risk. In other words, in the middle of an election campaign, a court may decide that it should suspend it and that all those rallies and lamppost signs have not existed. In a year in which, from January to January, life has been full of uncertainties, it is almost immoral that we do not know how to put the festival of democracy on our agenda either. Can we really not even know the day we are going to vote? Now that even the scientific evidence does not last more than a quarter of an hour, now that the economic suffering means that so many people, so many companies and so many sectors cannot know whether they will survive, now that we doubt whether the world we knew before 2020 will return, the last thing we need is for the election dates to change, back and forth, according to political shenanigans and a handful of judicial whims. If in this case the criteria of my learned friends passes before the clamour of scientists, we may as well give up. How many people infected on 14-F will be needed to be able to criminally prosecute the High Court for its irresponsibility?

The best, for a change, came from Teresa Cunillera. The delegate of the Spanish government in Catalonia told Gemma Nierga that she isn't worried about going to vote on February 14. But soon after she added that she would vote by mail. The gag is unbeatable. The interesting morning show on La 2 and Ràdio 4 is called The ideas café. After yesterday, it should be The brilliant ideas café.

stats