Spain’s high court blocks Catalan separatist’s power bid

Spain’s Supreme Court on Thursday turned down a second request by a jailed leader of Catalonia’s independence movement to be released so that regional lawmakers can vote on making him their leader.

Judge Pablo Llarena said in a ruling that there remained a risk that Jordi Sanchez, a prominent secessionist, would repeat the offences that landed him in a Madrid jail.

He is being detained while the Supreme Court investigates whether he orchestrated protests that hindered officials who were trying to stop a court-banned Catalan independence referendum last October. The ballot triggered Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.

Pro-independence political parties in Catalonia have defied the Spanish government for the past six months with efforts to secede from Spain and create a new country. Court rulings have repeatedly thwarted their ambitions, however, because the Constitution says Spain is “indivisible.”

Llarena said the only new argument in Sanchez’s latest request was a reference to the UN’s Human Rights Committee calling for Spain to respect the rights of arrested Catalan separatists.

The judge said the UN body had made no specific demand that might be binding on the Supreme Court.

Llarena also denied Sanchez’s request to appear in the Catalan parliament via video link, noting that Sanchez’s rights were “partially limited.”