Posted: Oct 22, 2017 8:13 am
Thomas Eshuis wrote:Thommo wrote:Didn't they literally get their constitutional courts to rule on this matter, more than once?
Playing devil's advocate, if the goal is to secede from the very nation of said courts, why would their rulings matter one bit?
Do you think the English colonists would've cared what a court in England said about the Declaration of Independence?
Well, you have a point, although it depends what one means by "matter". But clearly it can result in civil war if it's not held to be constitutional, and that would certainly matter in a lot of ways.
Regardless how bad Britain's departure from the EU gets, it's not a matter of armed conflict. The same would (maybe will) be true if Scotland holds an approved referendum like they did in 2014. This cannot be said for a unilateral declaration of independence that ignores that mutuality.
This situation will be orders of magnitude more acriminious. If it stops short of people dying, I will be thrilled.
All that said, I was simply answering Ron's question. No, it does not seem like the constitution is being trampled on when the constitutional procedure is followed to the letter, right up to respecting the courts on the matter. Although I would agree with you that in a sense that ruling might not be all important to the people of Catalonia.
A caveat should be attached to that as well though - "the people" of Catalonia don't all agree and many don't want to leave Spain. The answer to the question of which group within Catalonia is larger, the leavers or the remainers, is unclear. The only thing we know for sure about the declared results of the nullified referendum is that it wasn't representative.