Carles Puigdemont is left without a legal shield against extradition demands from Spain. The European Parliament acted correctly in its decision to lift parliamentary immunity at the request of the Supreme Court, the General Court of the European Union (TGUE) announced today. "The appeal filed by Messrs. Puigdemont i Casamajó and Comín i Oliveres and by Ms. Ponsatí i Obiols against the decisions of the European Parliament to waive their immunity is dismissed", the court announced this morning in Luxembourg, endorsing the decisions made to waive their parliamentary immunity.
"The General Court rejects all the reasons formulated by the three deputies, in particular their allegations according to which Parliament erred in concluding that the aforementioned judicial process was not initiated with the intention of damaging the activity of the deputies", affirms the ruling, against the arguments put forward by Puigdemont's defense, which spoke of "political persecution" against the Catalan representatives. The judges affirm that, to accept the request, "Parliament relied on various elements", among them that "the facts charged had been committed in 2017, while the deputies acquired the status of members of Parliament on June 13, 2019 " as well as the fact that the three were prosecuted on March 21, 2018, "that is, at a time when the acquisition of the status of MEP was hypothetical."
Contrary to what was defended by Puigdemont's legal team, the General Court affirms that, when examining a request for waiver of immunity, "it is not up to Parliament to analyze the legality of Spanish judicial acts, since this issue is the exclusive competence of the national authorities". The European judges, finally, also reject that the European Parliament did not act with due impartiality just because the rapporteur of the petition report, the Bulgarian Angel Dzhambazki, belonged to the European political group of European conservatives and reformists, the same one in which Vox is a member. . This condition "is in principle irrelevant for the assessment of his impartiality" because although by definition a deputy is not politically neutral "he nonetheless acts within the framework of a parliamentary commission whose composition reflects the balance of the political groups in Parliament". Nor does he see it as irregular that the Legal Affairs committee that managed the petition organized the three files in a single case. In addition, in a second decision also known today, the TGUE also considers inadmissible the appeal filed against the refusal of the President of the European Parliament to protect his parliamentary immunity in 2019.
Moments before the sentences were released, it was Puigdemont himself who announced the outcome of the case in a tweet and announced that he would appeal the ruling before the Court of Justice of the EU, the CJEU, the club's highest court. "Nothing ends, on the contrary, everything continues. We will present a memory to the CJEU and we will defend our fundamental rights to the end," says the former president, who says he continues to work "with the same spirit" as on the first day "to win freedom." . Clearly disappointed by the judicial decision, Puigdemont has concluded that "political dissidence is most threatened in Europe today." In addition to appealing the ruling, the former president's defense has advanced that he will request the imposition of "precautionary measures" to prevent him from being detained in the time that elapses until there is a signed sentence, since these were only valid until his appeal was resolved.
In its day, the European Parliament concluded that the facts for which Puigdemont and Comín were being sued (the crimes of embezzlement and sedition, only by the latter in the case of Ponsatí) were prior to obtaining their seat, so they did not they are related to their activity as MEPs and they could not be exempted from responding to justice due to their new status as MEPs. Puigdemont's lawyers, however, maintain that this request is no longer valid since it refers to an arrest and surrender order that was withdrawn at the beginning of the year by Judge Llarena as a result of the reform of the Penal Code, therefore, In his opinion, they should start the procedure from scratch in the European Parliament, a theory that the TS does not share.
In theory, the TGUE decision opens the door for Llarena to reactivate the Euro-warrants (now they are only active in Spanish national territory) and once again request the European judicial authorities to arrest him and hand him over to Spain, but for this the investigating judge of the 1-O must issue new arrest and surrender orders against the defendants taking into account the latest reform of the Penal Code. In the case of Puigdemont, the crimes of which he is accused are disobedience and aggravated embezzlement.
In any case, this process will not be quick or automatic. Nor is it clear what the outcome will be. Even if Llarena issues new arrest warrants against the former president and the former ministers, the Belgian authorities, the country where they currently reside, will wait for the TGUE ruling to be final, which will take several months. In addition, a preliminary ruling published in January by the CJEU in January seriously delimited the reasons that an EU country can use to deny a request for detention but did not completely rule out this possibility.
