AN independence vote set for November in Spain's powerful Catalonia region has been halted by the nation's constitutional court after the central government mounted a legal case saying the planned referendum would be illegal.
The court's unanimous decision to hear the government's case automatically suspended the November 9 vote from going forward until the court hears arguments and makes a decision. That process could take months or years.
The Spanish government contends the vote approved on Saturday by Catalan regional leader Artur Mas is unconstitutional.
The court acted after Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said the referendum decree represents "a grave attack on the rights of all Spaniards".
Under Spain's 1979 Constitution, Mr Rajoy said, all Spaniards must vote on issues of sovereignty - not just the five million Catalans who would be eligible to vote under Mr Mas's planned vote.
Unhappy at Spain's refusal to give it more autonomy and fiscal powers, and buoyed by the vote in Scotland, albeit not the result, Catalan politicians have been pushing for the referendum for months.
Polls suggest most Catalans favour holding the vote but are roughly evenly split on independence.
Mr Mas has insisted the vote will happen but has also said Catalonia will not break any laws.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article