Carles Puigdemont will have a second chance to review the national arrest warrant issued by the Supreme Court against him after the charge of sedition was changed to embezzlement. The plenary session of the Constitutional Court has decided that it will be all the magistrates, with the exception of its president Cándido who has abstained, who will decide whether his appeal should be admitted to the procedure to study its merits. This decision has been adopted following an appeal from the Prosecutor's Office, which was opposed to the fact that the Sala de Vacances met in the middle of August to avoid the processing of the ex-president's appeal.
The resolution of the Sala de Vacances already had a special vote from the magistrate Laura Díez, who made it clear that all the resources linked to the process have been accepted for processing due to their special significance.
The Sala de Vacances rejected the appeal against the arrest warrant issued by the Supreme Court against Puigdemont and Comín for disobedience and embezzlement, by two votes to one. The conservative magistrates César Tolosa and Concepción Espejel defended that the urgency to resolve was due to the fact that Puigdemont and Comín had requested precautionary measures that had to have a quick response, once the matter entered the Constitutional Court on the last day of july They considered that there was no need to wait, despite the fact that none of them is in Spain to be arrested.
Nevertheless, Laura Díez questioned the "hasty" and "unnecessary" way in which the resolution was taken, which prevented the plenary from debating the intention of the former president and the former councilor to cancel the their national arrest warrants. Until now, all appeals on the cause of action had been automatically admitted to proceedings and then debated in full court.
The prosecutor appealed against the resolution with arguments similar to that of the private vote. He believes that this question should not have been resolved by the Sala de Vacances on August 9, since this month is unworkable and it is not an urgent matter to convene the room.
According to the Prosecutor's Office, the room did not adhere to the "true tenor" of the agreement to convene the vacation room and was "devoid of its logical, systematic and teleological context".
In his opinion, assuming this argument of competence "to be generalized as a doctrinal criterion, would have application consequences that are hardly compatible with the same institutional and constitutional configuration of the court". However, the public ministry was already advancing that, even if it is against the way the case has been processed, it has nothing to do with the fact that later in the substance of the matter the pretensions of the pro-independence leader are rejected.
