“Referendum is unconstitutional and will not take place,” says deputy PM

Barely hours after Catalan premier Artur Mas signed a decree calling a referendum on independence for the northeastern Spanish region, Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saénz de Santamaría held a press conference in which she reiterated the intentions of the Popular Party government to quash the vote in the courts.

“This referendum will not take place because it is not constitutional,” the government’s number two told the press. “No government and no single person is above the will of sovereignty, and it is the government’s job to ensure that the law is not broken,” she continued.

It is the government’s job to ensure that the law is not broken” Deputy PM Saénz de Santamaría

The deputy prime minister announced that she has ordered a report from the State Council advisory body regarding the planned referendum, which will then be discussed in an emergency Cabinet meeting that has been called for Monday with a view to presenting an appeal against the decree in the Constitutional Court.

“The government is going to continue to unite and not divide, within the law and with respect to the margins of coexistence," she continued.

Saénz de Santamaría also responded to Mas’s call for dialogue, saying that the government had always been receptive to talks and that “whenever the Catalans have had a problem, the Spanish government has been there.”

The deputy PM went on to explain that once the Constitutional Court has suspended the decree, as well as the legislation that the Catalan government passed last Friday paving the way for the vote, “no actions toward executing it” will be able to be carried out.

“No one is above [the law of] democracy, nor can they decide [which laws] should be obeyed and which should no longer be obeyed,” she concluded.