Neither the former Catalan president nor the others prosecuted for sedition can now be tried for this crime
MADRID, 11 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The repeal of the crime of sedition that the Government has announced will benefit the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, prosecuted for this crime and that of embezzlement, not only because he can no longer be tried for that criminal type, but also because the alternative crime devised by Moncloa reduces the penalties so that, if the investigating judge Pablo Llarena changes one for another, the statute of limitations will go from 20 to 10 years. After that time, criminal liability will have expired.
The Supreme Court (TS) has already judged and sentenced former vice president Oriol Junqueras and eleven other Catalan leaders for the ‘procés’, but the instructor of the case is still waiting for the other five prosecuted for 1-O who are still on the run –Puigdemont , the former directors Toni Comín, Clara Ponsatí and Lluís Puig and the ERC leader Marta Rovira– return to Spain in order to continue the procedure against them.
Puigdemont, Comín and Ponsatí are prosecuted for the crimes of sedition and embezzlement, while Rovira is only prosecuted for sedition and Puig is not charged with that crime, but rather with disobedience and embezzlement. Therefore, the disappearance of this criminal type will affect everyone except the latter, whose situation will remain unchanged.
The former president and the other three prosecuted for sedition will benefit from the repeal of this crime to the extent that they can no longer be tried for it. Thus, they will go from facing a sentence of between 10 and 15 years in prison and the same time of disqualification only for sedition to a sentence of between 3 and 5 years in prison and 6 and 8 years of disqualification for the proposed crime of aggravated public disorder , in the event that Llarena replaced one by another.
The legal sources consulted by Europa Press highlight the impact of the criminal reform on the statute of limitations for alleged crimes. In accordance with article 131 of the Penal Code (CP), currently the time that must elapse for criminal responsibility to be extinguished is 20 years for all those prosecuted for sedition, Puigdemont included.
But if sedition were exchanged for the future crime of aggravated public disorder, the prescription would fall to 10 years, because it is the period contemplated when “the maximum penalty established by law is imprisonment or disqualification for more than 5 years and that does not exceed of 10”, as would be the case. The cited sources point out that it is the same current prescription for embezzlement.
Once criminal responsibility has been extinguished, the fugitives could return to Spain without having to face justice, but the sources emphasize that it is a complex matter because since the criminal acts were committed, in 2017, the statute of limitations it has started running and reset several times. In fact, they emphasize that the most complicated assumption is that of Puigdemont.
In the midst of this new scenario, it is pending that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) rule on the preliminary questions raised by Llarena.
The magistrate of the Supreme went to the European Justice after a Belgian appeal court refused to hand over Puig, who fled to Belgium with Puigdemont, while keeping in suspense the decisions about the latter and two other former members of the Government -Comín and Ponsatí — for being MEPs.
Llarena questioned the way in which the Puig case was resolved, but rather asked to clarify the scope of the European arrest and surrender orders against the rest of those claimed and the cases in which they can be rejected.
It should be remembered that last July the General Counsel Jean Richar de la Tour informed the Court of Justice of the EU –in a non-binding opinion– that the Belgian courts exceeded their limits by denying the jurisdiction of the Spanish Supreme Court to issue the Euroorders .
He assured that denying the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court could “crack” the principle of mutual recognition that the countries of the European Union accepted when designing the Euroorder. Although the rulings are not binding for the CJEU, their sentences follow in the vast majority of cases the line marked by the opinion of the Advocate General.
In any case, the answer to Llarena’s questions will not mark the end of the journey since there is a second matter pending resolution in the European Court, for which the Belgian Justice paralyzed the Puigdemont process in January 2020.
Puigdemont, Comín and Ponsatí obtained a seat in the European elections of May 2019 and held a seat as of January 2020, after a ruling by the EU Court in the case of ERC leader Oriol Junqueras established that they should have been recognized as MEPs since the official proclamation of the results, even if they did not go to swear the Constitution.
As a consequence, the Supreme Court sent the respective petitions to the European Parliament to request the suspension of the immunities of the three JxCAT MEPs so that they can be tried in Spain, a measure that the plenary session of the European Parliament accepted in March 2021.
On this occasion, it was the three pro-independence politicians who went to the CJEU in May 2021 to appeal the European Parliament decision and demand that their immunity be restored; a case that is still pending.
Meanwhile, the three defendants requested that their immunity be provisionally restored while the appeal was resolved, but the Court considered that it was not necessary because the Euroorders were considered suspended and there was no risk that they would be arrested while traveling as MEPs.
The arrest of Puigdemont in Sardinia (Italy) allowed the defendants to once again request provisional measures from Luxembourg, which in a second order last May returned their respective immunities until the case is resolved.
