Spain
Court may be entering final stretch over Catalan statute
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The Constitutional Court is said to be prepared to hand down its long-awaited ruling on the legality of Catalonia's autonomy statute. The court will reconvene today for what is expected to be its final session before voting on the region’s autonomous governing laws, passed in 2006 but which are being challenged by the Popular Party.
The session could be drawn out for several days and the final ruling is not expected until later this week, court sources predict.
The judicial body is divided over certain clauses in the statute, especially ones that gave courts in Catalonia their own authority and those that include references to a Catalan "nation" and "Catalan nationals" in their text.
As the final decision approaches, the region's politicians have begun preparing their agenda this week to deal with possible political fallout. Josep Duran Lleida, the congressional leader of the CiU Catalan nationalists, postponed a scheduled trip this week to Guatemala in anticipation of the ruling.
Catalan voters approved the statute in a referendum after it was passed in Congress despite PP opposition.
(Published by El País – June 28, 2010)