Follow the rules

A good deal of criticism can be thrown at the European Arrest Warrant system, as Lesley Riddoch points out (Perspective, 2 April). It is certainly a valid role for devolved governments to pass comment on how it works and to press to have the system amended. Whether this point is at the core of the predicament facing Professor Carla Ponsati is more debatable.

Perhaps all democrats should oppose her extradition to Spain on the grounds of civil liberty. But there is an equally relevant point for all those interested in how European democracies work. It was articulated by Ms Ponsati herself in a recent radio broadcast. She admired what had happened in Scotland in 2014 when the Westminster government had temporarily ceded control of the constitution to the Holyrood government to organise a referendum on independence. It is important to recall how that came about. It came about through parliamentary pressure in both Edinburgh and London – elected governments getting approval for a plebiscite, the outcome of which both sides would respect.

The Edinburgh Agreement signed in 2013 by David Cameron and Alex Salmond ensured that the vote would be legally watertight, and not vulnerable to a legal challenge, for example by a group of businessmen, to its legitimacy. Nobody could claim it was an illegal referendum. For a similar situation to arise in Spain there would have to be changes to the country’s constitution.

Those changes could only come about through parliamentary pressure in Madrid backed up, perhaps, by a referendum. Therein lies the dilemma for pro-independence Catalonian politicians. Should they press for those changes – to make Spain a much less centralised state – and then press for a legal referendum on autonomy for their region? Or do they pursue the constitutional blind alley which has given Mr Puigdemont and Ms Ponsati international renown but no real reform?

BOB TAYLOR Shiel Court, Glenrothes