Judge Pablo Llarena has flatly rejected the fifth challenge presented against him by the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont for being “manifestly unfounded.” For the instructor, the independence leaders who have yet to be prosecuted by the process are exploiting the figure of recusal to try to delay the judicial process.
A few words from him about the amnesty law have been the argument used by Puigdemont, Toni Comin and Clara Ponsatí to try to remove Llarena from the case and thus delay, according to the order, the orders for his surrender to Spain.
For Llarena, it is not a reason for recusal that he has spoken, in an academic setting, about an amnesty law because no norm has even been approved in this regard and, furthermore, he is not going to be responsible for determining whether this is unconstitutional or not even to raise a question of unconstitutionality before the TC.
The magistrate explains that the conference referred to by the defendants took place in a strictly academic space and responded to the analysis of the basic technical criteria for supervising the constitutionality of any legal norm, but without evaluating any specific aspect of a possible Amnesty Law. That is to say, the procedural position of the instructor was not advanced in any of the passages that the recusants themselves culled, but rather a general and open academic approach was made that was highlighted by the media.
In any case, the judge adds, regardless of the content of the conference, "its impartiality cannot be considered compromised" when the recusants demand their immediate separation from the investigation. In his opinion, it is "impossible" that his conference today could reflect any conditions for the processing of the case, "since no Amnesty Law has been promulgated that can be applied today to the case being prosecuted."
“The current cause of recusal seeks the immediate removal of the instructor by speculating about my position in the face of a legal provision that does not exist and may never exist, so that consideration today lacks any relevance for the case,” he points out.
The order indicates that in the event that one day an Amnesty Law were to be enacted, "with material application criteria that do not even exist today, it will not be up to the instructor to decide on the constitutionality of the norm, nor will it even be up to him to question its constitutional validity nor the raising of a question of unconstitutionality".
Therefore, with these arguments Llarena maintains that the challenge is unfounded and that is why he inadmisses it 'a limine' (outright), suggesting well-founded that it could have been used to delay the issuance of a European arrest warrant, "procedurally foreseeable, and capable of to complete a case that is only pending receipt of investigative statements from the rebellious defendants.
For the magistrate, the dilatory purpose is seen in the defense briefs, which advance that the recusal process can be extended to the magistrates called to resolve it, thus generating a "chain of exclusions that delays the final decision."
For Llarena, Puigdemont's intention is to extend the judicial process until June 2024, the date on which the European courts are dissolved and therefore the request requested by this instructor to the current European Parliament to prosecute the former Catalan president will decline.
