The decision has been taken by the Grading Service of the Justice Department of the Generalitat. Yesterday the proposal from the Lledoners Prison Treatment Committee was approved, so Sánchez and Cuixart will be able to leave prison for 48 hours. The monitoring judge now has between 3 and 7 days to ratify the measure, which has already been agreed. But it is a formative step, since having a permission of less than 3 days does not require its support. "The Generalitat will publicize the resolution of the Classification Services, but will not specify days to protect people's privacy," the Justice Department said.

Sánchez and Cuixart are ranked in the second grade and have already served a quarter of the sentence (two and a half years). Once the first authorisation has been approved and for as long as they are in the second grade, the processing commission may propose up to 36 more days of leave per year.

Permits for other prisoners

All other Catalan political prisoners sentenced for organizing the 2017 referendum may apply for the same authorization as one quarter of the sentence is served: Carme Forcadell, Dolors Bassa, Raül Romeva and Jordi Turull in February; Joaquim Forn in June; Josep Rull in October and Oriol junqueras in January 2021.