Nine years after his escape, the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont awaits the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on the Amnesty Law for the procés, hoping to be able to return to Spain if the ruling is favorable to his interests.
Pending the content of the ruling, which will be notified next Thursday by the Luxembourg Court, the only clear thing is that neither the Supreme Court nor the Constitutional Court will make an immediate interpretation of the ruling. Puigdemont, once again, will have to wait.
According to legal sources reported to EL MUNDO, in the case of the instructor of the procés, Pablo Llarena – who is currently on summer vacation because he will work in August in the Vacation Chamber of the High Court – it is expected that before determining whether the CJEU ruling will have an impact or not on the refusal to apply amnesty to Puigdemont for the crime of embezzlement, he will decide to hear the allegations of the parties in such an important matter. If, as everything indicates, Llarena forwards the case to the parties involved in the 1-O case, the process will be delayed a few days.
On the other hand, it happens that sources consulted at the Constitutional Court indicate that it will probably not be until October when the amparo appeal filed by the fugitive requesting full application of the Amnesty Law is resolved. Firstly, because the Court of Guarantees decided to wait for the Luxembourg ruling before resolving the amparos filed by the leaders of the procés and will now take a reasonable time to study the ruling and prepare a report on Puigdemont and those convicted for 1-O, as legal sources indicate.
Secondly, the court chaired by magistrate Cándido Conde-Pumpido wants to give the Supreme Court a prudent margin to study the CJEU ruling and decide how to apply it, since it is the competent body to do so – the TC is approached by the Junts leader and the amnestied convicted for considering their fundamental rights violated -.
Magistrate Pablo Llarena studied the Amnesty Law in July 2024 and considered that the embezzlement charge attributed to the former president of the Generalitat for the illegal 1-O referendum was not amnestied. Currently, the instructor maintains the national arrest warrant against Carles Puigdemont in force.
His amparo appeal before the TC will be resolved in October
Llarena argued that the limitations introduced by the legislator in the law, regarding the crime of embezzlement, prevented applying amnesty to the pro-independence leader. The instructor explained that article 1.4 of the Law indicates that the concept of enrichment includes, in addition to actions where any personal patrimonial advantage is obtained, those who, charged to public funds, obtain any benefit that would have required the payment of a monetary consideration, even if it does not materially increase their level of wealth.
In the procés, the funds came from the Generalitat’s coffers, but those who controlled those public resources decided to put them at the service of an illegal political initiative, such as the 1-O referendum in 2017, where the interests of the separatists prevailed.
Furthermore, the instructor of the Second Chamber argued that the Law itself prohibited amnestying acts classified as embezzlement of funds that affect the financial interests of the European Union.
The CJEU will have to rule on this point. The opinion of the Advocate General, which carries weight within the court but is not binding, stated that the law that erases the crimes of the procés does not conflict with the financial interests of the EU nor with its anti-terrorism regulations. It also rejected that the Law covers an “auto-amnesty.”
Regarding embezzlement, the Advocate General, Dean Spielmann, held that “the protection of the financial interests of the Union does not oppose the extinction of liability provided for in the Organic Amnesty Law for acts determining accounting responsibility that affect the financial interests of the Union, since there is no direct link between those acts and the current or potential reduction of revenues made available to the Union budget.”
Beyond the former Catalan president, at this time, both the National Court and the Court of Auditors maintain two cases on hold pending the final decision of the Court of Justice of the EU, which is binding for Spanish courts.