The investigating judge of the cause of the process yesterday cooled the possibility of now reactivating the European arrest warrant against former president Carles Puigdemont, as requested by the Prosecutor’s Office on Monday, hours after the electoral results placed Junts per Catalunya as key piece in the future governability of Spain.
As La Vanguardia advanced, the magistrate of the Supreme Court will not decide on the European warrants against the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and his advisor Toni Comín so that they are extradited to Spain from Belgium until the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) rule on the eventual precautionary measures that both may apply for, taking into account the appeal that they are expected to present to provisionally restore the parliamentary immunity that was withdrawn from them at the beginning of July by the General Court of the EU (TGUE) .
The prosecutors of the process rushed on Monday to request Llarena to act against Puigdemont and Comín for the crime of embezzlement, which carries a prison sentence of between six and twelve years for the large amount of funds they allegedly embezzled. Yesterday they received a bucket of cold water.
Llarena argues in the providence signed yesterday that if any Euroorder was reactivated in the current state of the procedure, it would be “immediately paralyzed” – before even reaching its object – if the CJEU accepted the eventual precautionary measure that obliges “to interrupting his international processing and which makes the advance of the arrest order inconsequential at this moment”.
The instructor recalls in his letter that the judgment of the TGUE of July 5 can be appealed in cassation before the TJUE within a period of two months and ten days. That is, until September 15.
However, if no one appeals or the precautionary measures that are requested with the appeal are not accepted, then the former president’s arrest warrant will be reactivated.
As Llarena explains, “there would be no difficulty” for those prosecuted to be made available to Spanish justice before the dissolution of the European Parliament, for which they were elected and the reason why they enjoyed parliamentary immunity. The next elections to the European Parliament are scheduled for June 2024.
In any case, adds the judge, it would be “an anomaly that the constitution of a new parliament would force the process to restart”.