European justice withdraws Carles Puigdemont's immunity

The General Court of the European Union has withdrawn this Friday the parliamentary immunity of former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and the other two MEPs of Junts per Catalunya (JxCat), Toni Comín and Clara Ponsatí, who remain fled from Spanish justice.

The court thus revokes the provisional decision it adopted on June 2, when it temporarily restored their parliamentary immunity until it decided on the appeal that the three MEPs presented against the decision of the European Parliament to accept the request requested by the Spanish Supreme Court.

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The Luxembourg-based judges thus dismissed the demand for provisional measures that the three MEPs filed on May 26, asking that the approval of the petition be suspended because it allowed “any Member State and the United Kingdom to stop or restrict their movements and hand them over. to the Spanish authorities ”. In the order issued this Friday, the vice-president of the TGUE recalls, however, that the withdrawal of immunity does not affect the shield that "protects the deputies during their travels to the meeting place of Parliament or when they return from it." That immunity, the car warns, "remains legally intact." That is, Puigdemont, Comín and Ponsatí can continue traveling to Strasbourg (France) to attend the plenary sessions without fear of being arrested,so there is no danger that the three alleged in their resources.

The decision of the European justice does suspend the immunity "enjoyed by the deputies, in the territory of any Member State other than their national territory, against any measure of detention and any judicial action". This, in principle, could imply the risk that the former Catalan president and the escaped former councilors would be arrested in Belgium or in any other country, but the European court considers that there is no such danger because the execution of the European arrest warrants “has also been suspended ”after Judge Pablo Llarena, instructor of the case against Puigdemont in the Supreme Court, referred to the Court of Justice of the EU a preliminary ruling on the extradition of former councilor Lluis Puig on how Belgium should current when examining the Euro-orders issued for Spain.

“The deputies have not provided any information that would allow questioning the above, so that the Vice-President of the General Court considers that, as long as the Court of Justice does not rule on the Puig case for a preliminary ruling, there is nothing to consider that the Belgian judicial authorities or that the authorities of another Member State may execute the European arrest warrants issued against the deputies and hand them over to the Spanish authorities ”, the court stated in this Friday's order.

The TGUE also considers "currently hypothetical" a possible arrest and handover of Ponsatí by the authorities of the United Kingdom (country in which she resided for a time, until January 2020), contrary to what was alleged by the former councilor when requesting have his immunity restored. "The vice president comes to the conclusion that the deputies have failed to demonstrate that the urgency requirement is met, since, in the current situation, the serious and irreparable damage they invoke cannot be qualified as true or credited with a degree of sufficient probability ”, concludes the court to deny the requests of the three MEPs.

Junts per Catalunya, the party led by Carles Puigdemont, has reacted to the withdrawal of immunity stating that, despite this, the political rights of the former president and former councilors "are not in danger." In a statement,

, Junts underlines that "the General Court of the European Union has withdrawn the precautionary measures because the political rights of Puigdemont, Comín and Ponsatí are not in danger." And they add: “Spain, when presenting the preliminary question to the Court of Justice of the European Union, has had to suspend the Euro-orders. In case of reactivation of the Euroorders, the General Court of the European Union would give the precautionary ones again ”, interprets JxCat.