Llarena issues a national arrest warrant against Ponsatí: "He boasted of not attending the summons"

The judge investigating the cause of the process in the Supreme Court, Pablo Llarena, has issued a national arrest warrant against the MEP and former Minister of Education Clara Ponsatí.

After five years on the run for her involvement in the illegal referendum, Ponsatí returned to Spain on March 28 and was arrested in Barcelona. The former minister was released that same day and Llarena agreed to summon her on April 24 to notify her of her prosecution for a crime of disobedience, but she no longer attended the appointment. “He has voluntarily and unjustifiably neglected the judicial summons”, criticizes the magistrate in his resolution. The same morning that she was summoned in the Supreme Court, Ponsatí tweeted a photograph in Flanders, and Llarena does not ignore this fact either: “He boasted of having no intention of attending the judicial summons”.

The independence leader chooses to challenge the Supreme Court after benefiting from the government reform that repeals sedition. Until last January, the magistrate kept her on trial for sedition, which in 2019 came to be punished with 11 and a half years in prison for the former president of Parliament, Carme Forcadell. However, when this crime was repealed, the magistrate went on to prosecute her for disobedience, which does not entail prison sentences, only a fine and disqualification from holding public office..

If the ex-minister appears voluntarily and personally, as happened with the also prosecuted Meritxel Serret and Anna Gabriel, Llarena will revoke the arrest warrant, but rejects her arguments that she could not attend because of her work as an MEP: “The defense had a wide margin to warn this instructor (…) and request the readjustment in the citation that he considered necessary”, criticizes. “This provision was evaded and it was decided to present an exculpatory document that has not been followed by any proposal to attend to the judicial appeal later”.

Immunity, at the center of the debate

Ponsatí's challenge to the Supreme Court also serves as an advance for a hypothetical return of the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont. The ex-minister's defense clings to the fact that she enjoys immunity as a MEP and maintains that the Supreme Court must suspend the proceedings against her, which serves Puigdemont to test the scope of the special protection provided by her seat in Brussels.

“Once the procedure for protection of the privileges and immunities of Ms.. Clara Ponsatí i Obiols, the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (…) obliges the Hon.. Investigating Magistrate to suspend the judicial procedure”, argued his defense in the letter sent to the Supreme.

In the order notified this Wednesday, Llarena discards this reasoning and points out that the defense relies on a sentence of the Grand Chamber of the High Court of Justice of the European Union that addresses a different situation: “In the indicated sentence an alleged in which a European parliamentarian hoped to be protected by a privilege of absolute immunity”, explains. “He considered that it was inviolable because the judicial claim started in opinions or statements supposedly expressed by the defendant in the exercise of his parliamentary function”.

With Ponsatí, however, the procedure focuses on the role he played during 1-O, that is, on “the immunity that members of the European Parliament can enjoy for any crime outside their function and in the territory of the State for which they were appointed”. Taking this difference into account, “the European Parliament (by provision of the European regulation itself) cannot extend the scope of immunity with respect to what is provided for in state regulations”, which allows issuing a national arrest warrant against the former minister.