Spain’s Constitutional Court, acting on an appeal from Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, suspended on Wednesday the pro-independence Catalan government’s resolution to set in motion a process to form a republic within 18 months.
The Court took a unanimous decision to suspend the resolution, passed earlier this week, which calls for secession from Spain. But the Generalitat, or regional government, said it would push ahead with the independence process in defiance of the court.
“The political will of the government of Catalonia is to go ahead with the content of the resolution approved Monday by the Catalan parliament,” the vice president of the Catalan government, Neus Munte, told a news conference late Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, Rajoy called a special cabinet meeting to discuss Monday’s vote in Barcelona and said afterwards: “Catalan separatists want to take away from the Spanish people their greatest achievement: democracy.”
“They want to end democracy and the rule of law and we will not permit it,” added Rajoy, who will seek re-election in Spanish national elections on December 20.
Rajoy sent the court a list, via the Attorney General, of 21 officials whom he said should be warned that they will be suspended from their positions if they do not abide by the court’s final decision.
That list includes Artur Mas, acting president of the Generalitat or autonomous Catalan government, and Carme Forcadell, president of the Catalan parliament.
Mas heads the pro-independence coalition Junts pel Sí (Together for Yes), which got the most votes in September’s regional election, but fell short of an absolute majority. Mas now needs the vote of a small left-wing party to secure a new term.