SO many great Scots made such a contribution to the life of this nation over the past year that it really was difficult to create a shortlist for our Person of the Year award.
Yet as the newspaper outside of Spain that has given more coverage than any other to the struggle for Catalan independence, there really was only one choice for us, and that is professor Clara Ponsati.
Now 61, the quiet but determined, ever-smiling woman underwent a horrendous ordeal after she was a leading figure in the Catalonian referendum, in which the majority of voters opted for independence from Spain in 2017. She had been education minister in the Calatan government for three months, and that was enough to make her a target.
Hounded by a reactionary Spanish government, Clara Ponsati and some of her fellow ministers, including Catalonia’s former president Carlos Puidgemont, fled abroad, while others were imprisoned and are still awaiting their fate in jail.
Ponsati came back to Scotland where she is a professor at St Andrews University. There then began an extraordinary campaign to stop Ponsati being deported to Spain under the european arrest warrant (EAW) system.
Lawyer Aamer Anwar took up the case and with the help of crowdfunding, he assembled a formidable team against the Spanish government who, as in all EAW cases, acted through the Crown Office.
Mariano Rajoy's government accused Ponsati of rebellion
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Government were powerless to intervene as Spain’s EAW revealed in April that the government of Mariano Rajoy claimed Ponsati was guilty of violent rebellion and misappropriation of public funds. It was reported and never denied that Ponsati could face more than 30 years in jail – a near-certain death sentence given her age.
Maintaining quiet dignity throughout, Ponsati and her supporters took to the streets – there were large demonstrations outside Edinburgh Sheriff Court on her various appearances there before Sheriff Nigel Ross. A social media support campaign also got under way, and Ponsati was massively backed by St Andrews University and many other academics and politicians across Scotland. Everyone who met her spoke of her resolution and her calm approach that so obviously contrasted with the heavy-handed tactics of the Spanish government.
READ MORE: Supreme court to hear bulk of Catalan prisoners' trials
In the end it was that charge of rebellion which undid the Spanish government case. For the warrant to be valid, there had to be a similar law in Scotland, and fortunately for Ponsati, the crime of sedition or rebellion was removed from Scots law some time ago.
A four-week hearing had been set for her case but in late July, Spain withdrew its EAW, not least because Ponsati’s evidence was going to be very damning and may have shown that the Spanish government breached international and human rights laws. On July 23, Sheriff Ross formally ended proceedings and told Clara Ponsati: “You are free to go.”
It was a victory for Scots law, for a fine legal team, but above all a triumph for a courageous woman who took on the Spanish state and won.
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