I have recently returned from monitoring the Catalan independence trial at the Spanish Supreme Court in Madrid - where Catalan independence leaders are being tried for crimes of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds, for International Trial Watch.
It is an unusual trial and highly-divisive trial.
Instead of a first-instance court, a seven-judge Supreme Court panel presides. As Spain's highest court, there will be no merits appeal.
For a case about such serious crime...
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Ralph Bunche is the general secretary of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation, an international association of nations and peoples denied equal representation in the institutions of national or international governance. Previously he was the European regional director for Fair Trials, the global criminal justice watchdog, and ran the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's largest trial monitoring programme.