Gonzalo Boye, Carles Puigdemont's lawyer and one of the legal architects of the amnesty law agreed by the Government with the pro-independence parties, has assumed that the
former president,
if he has to be inaugurated, "is willing to return" to Spain. since they arrest him.”
The arrest, if it happens, will not prevent “him from being president” after the Catalan regional elections on May 12, Boye said, assuming that Puigdemont will be the Junts candidate.
“He will take his decision to the end,” he insisted.
Junts has not yet clarified who will be its head of list for these elections.
During an interview this morning on Rac1, the lawyer explained that “a legal framework” has been created so that his client “can return under the terms he decides”, in reference to the approval of the amnesty law for those accused of the
process
The
former president
, according to Boye, is willing to assume the consequences of his actions, but with the new legal framework of the amnesty law.
Puigdemont has been on the run from justice for six and a half years.
The amnesty law, which his party and ERC set as a condition to invest Pedro Sánchez, was approved by Congress on Thursday, and will now remain in the Senate for two months before being voted on again in the lower house and coming into force. .
Starting in June, it is expected that its application will be in the hands of the judges.
Boye has considered that Puigdemont's return to Spain is one of the main concerns of the current president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès (ERC), and the head of the central Executive, Pedro Sánchez.
“This is what they fear most: that he could run for office, win, and be sworn in as president of Catalonia,” he said.
“The only ones who can prevent it are the Catalans when they vote,” he added.
Aragonès recalled on Thursday that Puigdemont was already the head of the list in the 2021 elections and that he was third after the PSC and ERC.
After the electoral call, Salvador Illa, leader of the PSC, said that Catalonia needed “a
president
and not a candidate”, possibly alluding both to Aragonès and to Puigdemont himself.
Puigdemont's rivals also tend to remember that the former Catalan president has previously promised that he would return if he won the elections and he has not done so, so they consider that his credibility in this matter is seriously affected.
Junts is focusing its pre-campaign on increasing expectations about the group's leader's return to Catalonia, although without clarifying anything regarding that scenario.
The lawyer hopes that, once the amnesty law is published in the
Official State Gazette
, for which there are at least two months left, “the courts will begin to review the cases in which it should be applied and will lift the precautionary measures to which causes where appropriate.”
Thus, Boye has remarked, the Supreme Court will have to withdraw the arrest warrant against Puigdemont and “a different legal framework” will be opened, which would allow him to return.
Boye has pointed out that there is a possibility that there may be judges who “make conscientious objection to a law passed by the legislature.”
But he has stated that, in his opinion, the amnesty law is clear in excluding from the grace measure only terrorism crimes framed in European regulations and that have involved serious violations of fundamental rights: "Not just any nonsense," he said. , in reference to the case that the Supreme Court has opened against Puigdemont upon seeing signs of street terrorism in the Tsunami Democràtic riots in 2019. “They may arrest him, but they will not prevent him from being president of the Generalitat if he wants it.” be," Boye insisted, after emphasizing that Puigdemont, if he won the elections, could undergo an eventual investiture to be elected
president
"if the law is interpreted correctly."
The lawyer recognizes that if Puigdemont (who has not yet clarified whether he will be a Junts candidate in the Catalan elections) leaves his seat as an MEP to head an electoral list, he risks being arrested, because he would lose parliamentary immunity.
“You can rest assured that when Puigdemont makes a decision he is going to take it to the end and that means that he is going to stand where he has to stand,” he added.
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