Catalonia, the law and coronavirus lockdowns
Patrons Column: Catalonia is the new ground zero for Covid in Spain. What is Torra's regional government doing?
Outbreaks are increasing again in Spain: from the 73 the Health Minister, Illa, announced in a TV interview last Thursday to the 120 the country's chief coronavirus spokesman, Fernando Simón, announced yesterday. Yesterday, the Health Ministry said there had only been 164 new positive cases on Sunday but the total difference with Friday's total was 2,045 new cases, that a civil servant somewhere in the data collection system had classified on some date prior to yesterday. Catalonia is Spain's new Covid ground zero.
The Mayor of Barcelona, Colau, says they are up to 458 cases in 24 clusters, "we have almost tripled the number of infections". The Mayor of Hospitalet, next door to Barcelona, says they have jumped from 30 to 300 cases. In Lérida, 120 km away, a comparison of the total numbers published by the regional government shows 846 more cases between July 6 and July 12. This weekend, Quim Torra's regional government tried to lock Lérida down again.
A judge, backed by the public prosecutor, rejected that order late on Sunday night: it was not proportional and it was not constitutional. Only the national government, backed by parliament, can order a temporary suspension of fundamental rights, even in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic. The Chief Public Prosecutor in Lérida, Juan F. Boné, warned the First Minister, Torra: "There cannot be a decree if it touches on fundamental rights. The regulation would again be illegal and could be challenged before the Constitutional Court".
Torra could have chosen several paths after reading the judge's order. He could have arrived at the press conference 12 hours later with all his homework done, after waking up most of the Catalan government in the middle of the night to save the citizens of Lérida and the surrounding area. He could have already sent the request for a new state of alarm to the Prime Minister's office, even if it was just a WhatsApp message to Sánchez. He could have already sent extensive new epidemiological information to the court, with precise details of the evolution of the pandemic in the towns in question. He could have already lodged an appeal with a higher court, perhaps with a request for an urgent injunction to protect the population.
If he really wanted to, he could even have thanked the judge for her addition to the democratic decision making process at a crucial time for the region he governs. The judge in her ruling, at the end of the day, was only asking for more reality and more law. But no, Torra did not do any of that. He announced that he was moving forward with the regional Covid decree that the public prosecutor had already said would be inconstitutional. "No one should play politics or fight about turf when health is at stake", said the Deputy First Minister, Pere Aragonés, standing next to Torra, as they prepared to play politics and organise a turf war with the judge and the prosecutor.
The result of this fight also has national implications: the Prime Minister's plan was to have Spain's 17 regions manage the coronavirus crisis from now on, but if the courts are going to rule regional governments may not order blanket lockdowns, Sánchez might have no other option but to go back to another state of alarm.
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