A catalan judge was suspended 3 years for writing an unofficial draft of a Catalan constitution

On 27. February 2015, judge Santiago Vidal was suspended 3 years by the Plenary of the Spanish General Council of the Judiciary. His crime? In his free time he wrote an unofficial draft of a Catalan Constitution. This is the summary of the interview the Catalan Assembly did to him 3 day before such an unusual decision.

Read the full interview here: http://catalanassembly.org/2015/03/03/a-catalan-judge-was-suspended-3-years-for-writing-an-unofficial-draft-of-a-catalan-constitucion/

Santiago Vidal is a judge in the Audiencia of Barcelona, a professor of criminal law and criminology at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, and an author of various publications on criminal law, domestic violence, and Catalan language in law.

He became a media personality for his progressive sentences and public declarations against racial and gender discrimination, and for the protection of minors. He spoke repeatedly against abuse – in his view – of the reprieve of the government in Spain and against corruption. He expressed support on several occasions for the modernization of the judicial system and against court fees. He also criticized Spanish real estate law in favor of the payment system. He sympathizes with the NGO SOS Racisme Catalunya, with whom they formally banned him from collaborating with.

In the past few years he has become associated with defending the use of Catalan in the judiciary and in favor of Catalan Independence. Last January he presented a proposed Catalan Constitution for the future Catalan state, revised by a group of ten jurists.