The Constitutional Court has refused to protect the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont and the former minister Toni Comín, both MEPs, against the order of the investigating judge of the cause of the process in the Supreme Court, Pablo Llarena, through which he requested the president of the High Court Submit to the European Parliament the request for request, that is, the request for the waiver of parliamentary immunity.
The appeal by Puigdemont and Comín also challenged the successive orders that confirmed this first judicial decision and, likewise, requested a preliminary ruling on various matters.
In addition, the court has also rejected the request made on Monday by the defense of Puigdemont and Comín, represented by Gonzalo Boye, to suspend the amparo proceedings and a new request for a preliminary ruling, associated with some issues raised in the hearing before the General Court of the EU (TGUE) last Friday in relation to the immunity of MEPs.
Once the purpose of the amparo procedure has been defined, the Plenary understands that there are procedural defects that prevent hearing the complaints related to the violation of arts. 24.1 CE (right to an ordinary judge predetermined by law, right to an impartial judge, right to a decision based on law), 25.1 CE (principle of criminal legality), 16 CE (ideological freedom), 20 CE (freedom of expression) and 21 CE (right of assembly and demonstration).
In relation to the main object of the amparo claim, focused on the violation of the right to parliamentary immunity (linked to art. 23.2 CE) and on the infringement of art. 14 CE (due to the processing of the request for petition through the President of the Supreme Court and not the Ministry of Justice, as in a case from 2001), the allegations of the appellant are dismissed.
For the court of constitutional guarantees, the petition request, considered in isolation, "cannot be understood as an infringement of the rights to exercise the representative function" but as "a constitutionally recognized guarantor institution." In his case, it will be the granting or refusal of the request for the act (purely parliamentary and non-jurisdictional) that will affect parliamentary immunity, alleges the TC.
Ultimately, the appeal is dismissed, adds the TC, on the understanding that, once the request has been granted, and a different procedure has been opened and in another jurisdictional venue (the TGUE), by the appellants themselves, faced with this concession, the present amparo has lost its raison d'etre and any substantive resolution on the claim would be ineffective.
Yesterday the Plenary session already dismissed another appeal by both MEPs against the agreements of the Central Electoral Board (JEC) in which they rejected their inauguration for not having complied with the Constitution in person, after being elected in the elections of May 26, 2019, after which it agreed to notify the European Parliament of the vacancy of the seats and the suspension of their prerogatives as long as they did not meet the requirement of in-person compliance.
In its decision, the Constitutional Court takes into account its ruling of November 15, which contemplates the acceptance by the European Parliament of the election of the plaintiffs as deputies in its plenary session of January 13, 2020, with retroactive effects at the beginning of the legislature, and the full exercise since then of the rights corresponding to the statute of MEP.
This circumstance, subsequent to the contested agreements but prior to the filing of the request for amparo, implies an extra-procedural satisfaction of the nuclear claim of the appeal, that is, it allowed Puigdemont and Comín to access the status of European deputies with full exercise of the parliamentary function. In accordance with this circumstance, the Constitutional Court understands that the object of the main amparo claim and all its derivatives has been extinguished, which justifies the dismissal of the amparo appeal.
