Llarena will not activate the Euro-warrant against Puigdemont until the European Justice responds to his new maneuver

The man on whom it depends that the political forces of the left govern in Spain will not for the moment be placed in an international search and capture by the Supreme Court. The investigating magistrate of the cause of the procés, Pablo Llarena, has agreed this Thursday in an order to consider the petitions of the Prosecutor's Office and the popular accusation to reactivate the Euro-warrants and international arrest warrants against the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont and the former minister Antonio Comín, but it establishes that it will decide on them when the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) rules on the possible precautionary measures that both can present to see their parliamentary immunity provisionally restored.

Puigdemont already announced, upon learning of the withdrawal of his immunity, that he would appeal said ruling before the CJEU and request its precautionary suspension. For its part, the Supreme Court Prosecutor's Office had asked Llarena to activate the Eurowarrant considering that, although Puigdemont has announced that he will appeal the TGUE ruling before the Court of Justice of the European Union, this appeal does not have suspensive effects on the case. ruling that removes immunity.

The magistrate differs from the position of the Public Ministry. The judge recalls that the judgment of the General Court of the European Union (TGUE), of July 5, which dismissed the appeals of the defendants against the decision of the European Parliament to grant the petition against both requested by the judge, is susceptible to be appealed in cassation before the CJEU within a period of 2 months and 10 days (until September 15, 2023), being able, in such a case, to reiterate before the CJEU the request that parliamentary immunity be provisionally and provisionally restored.

In this sense, the instructor explains that any Euro-order that is issued in the current state of the procedure, would be immediately paralyzed (before reaching its object) if the CJEU admitted the possible precautionary measure that is requested at the time of the appeal; forcing to interrupt its international processing and making the advancement of the arrest warrant inconsequential at this time. Faced with various procedural vicissitudes, Llarena has already withdrawn the Euro-orders issued against Puigdemont for 1-O on three occasions in recent years.

On the other hand, adds the ruling, if the decision adopted by the TGUE is not appealed or, in the event of an appeal, if the CJEU decides to reject the precautionary measure that is requested with the challenge of the sentence, the decision that they request may be adopted the accusations sufficiently operatively in advance, given that the maximum term to resolve any delivery claim is three months, the judge underlined.

Consequently, the magistrate reasons, there would be no difficulty for the defendants to be placed at the disposal of the Spanish Justice before dissolving the Parliament for which they were elected and for whose performance they were granted the immunity whose suspension was requested from the beginning.

Postpone the decision

For the judge, the principle of loyal cooperation that operates as a guiding rule between the public bodies of the European Union and its Member States, should be oriented to the fact that, having requested the petition immediately after the current Parliament was constituted, if the suspension of immunity requested was granted and if it is legally valid, the jurisdictional initiative should be able to achieve the purpose for which it is intended; It being an anomaly that the constitution of a new Parliament in June 2024 forces this instructor to restart the process, the Providence highlights.

For all this, the instructor of the process considers the petition of the accusations presented; and adds that it will be resolved once the Court of Justice of the European Union rules on any precautionary measures requested by the defendants on the occasion of the appeal filed against the Judgment of the General Court of the European Union of July 5, 2023.

In his ruling, magistrate Pablo Llarena reviews the decisions agreed upon in relation to his request for a petition against Puigdemont and Comín. First, as a result of this request, the European Parliament suspended the immunity enjoyed by the defendants under Article 9 of the Protocol on the Privileges and Immunity of the European Union. However, Puigdemont and Comín appealed the parliamentary decision before the General Court of the European Union.

During the processing of the appeal, even though the TGUE denied the precautionary measure to suspend the withdrawal of immunity, such provisional measure was agreed by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in a resolution of May 24, 2022, so that the defendants provisionally continued to enjoy the privilege that initially corresponded to them as parliamentarians.

That precautionary measure declined when the TGUE dismissed, in its judgment of July 5, the appeal filed by the defendants against the parliamentary decision to grant the request made by the instructor.