His environment argues that a favorable ruling would facilitate his return to Spain, although the TS warns that he would be arrested.
BRUSSELS/MADRID, Nov. 18 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont will argue that Spain plans to repeal the crime of sedition for which he is claimed by the Supreme Court (TS) during the oral hearing to be held on November 25 at the General Court of the European Union (TGUE). , in which his defense will try to claim that his immunity as a member of the European Parliament prevents criminal proceedings against him.
The oral hearing is scheduled to begin around 9:00 next Friday and will last for several hours during which the legal representatives of the European Parliament and Spain and Puigdemont’s defense will present their respective positions to later submit to the questions that the magistrates want to ask. .
The TGUE will analyze the lawsuit filed on May 19, 2021 against the decisions adopted on March 9 of that same year by the PE with which it accepted the request made by the instructor of the ‘procés’, Pablo Llarena, thus suspending the immunity of Puigdemont and the former directors Toni Comín and Clara Ponsatí.
The European Parliament considered that the events for which Puigdemont and Comín are being sued for crimes of sedition and embezzlement –and in the case of Ponsatí, only for sedition– are prior to their taking office, so they bear no relation to their activity as MEPs.
The defense resorted to estimating that the EP had left unanswered a series of questions that open the door for the request to be revoked, identifying up to 14 points affected by this parliamentary silence.
One of the uncontested arguments in favor of maintaining Puigdemont’s immunity is that the Spanish Justice is suing him for a crime — sedition — that is not penalized in all member states.
Sources of the former president’s defense advance that, to reinforce this thesis, they will allege that in Spain there is already a bill of the parliamentary groups that make up the Government to repeal sedition.
Along the same lines, they point out that it will also be mentioned that the Government has shown itself open to also reforming the crime of embezzlement, although there is still no concrete proposal for this.
In this new context, the allegation of political persecution made by the three pro-independence leaders is especially important, because the defense will argue that the ups and downs of Spain -claiming first for rebellion, then for sedition and now eliminating said crime- reinforce the thesis of that they are being surrounded for political reasons.
The aforementioned sources assume that it is a risky maneuver because new facts cannot be introduced in the oral hearing that did not appear in the annulment action against the request.
However, in line they emphasize that in this specific case we would be in an exceptional situation since it is directly a question of a “new right” in the making that can affect the whole case.
It should be remembered that Puigdemont, Comín and Ponsatí provisionally recovered their immunity as MEPs on May 24, when the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) annulled a previous ruling that ruled out giving them this precautionary measure, considering that the withdrawal of this protection The parliamentary decision did not affect their movements as members of the EP, nor was it proven that they could be imminently arrested.
The substantive decision will be the one made by the TGUE after the oral hearing, in a sentence that is expected towards the end of January or the beginning of February. The same sources warn that if the European court agrees with Puigdemont and protects his immunity, he could return to Spain immediately without being arrested.
However, sources from the high court asked by Europa Press assure that, regardless of the TGUE ruling, if the former Catalan president set foot on Spanish soil, he could be arrested by virtue of the national search and capture order that is still in force.
To this they add that, in the scenario that the TGUE knocks down the request, it would always be possible to issue a new one that would adjust to the parameters established by the community court.
Although the key hearing in the TGUE will be on November 25, another one will be held the day before with which Puigdemont’s defense seeks that the magistrates declare that the late president of the European Parliament David Sassoli did not act correctly by not asserting immunity of the former president and the others when the Euro-orders of October and November 2019 were issued.
The European arrest and surrender warrants (OEDEs) remain suspended pending the CJEU to resolve the preliminary ruling questions raised by Llarena to clarify the scope of this judicial cooperation tool, after the Belgian courts refused to apply it to the former director Lluis Puig.
The EU Advocate General released his conclusions on July 14, in which he stated that a Member State cannot refuse to execute a Eurowarrant issued by another unless there is a systemic risk of violation of fundamental rights.
The position of the Advocate General is not binding but the CJEU tends to follow it in most cases. The response from the European magistrates to Llarena’s questions is expected towards the end of the year, but it could be delayed until March 2023 if the court agrees to Puigdemont’s latest request.
On November 7, Puigdemont’s defense asked the CJEU to reopen the oral phase of the procedure for preliminary rulings, arguing that the alleged espionage suffered by pro-independence leaders with the Pegasus program proves the systematic violation of fundamental rights.
The chances that the CJEU agrees to step back in the process to address this matter are slim, since it usually denies the reopening, despite which Puigdemont’s entourage trusts that the petition will succeed because it deals with “new relevant facts “.
