The former president Carles Puigdemont, after learning the content of the sentence of the General Court of the European Union (TGUE) that agrees with the European Parliament in relation to the lifting of his immunity as an MEP, has assured this Wednesday that he will appeal to the higher instance, to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), also located in Luxembourg.
The former president of the Generalitat acknowledges that the TGUE resolution is not the result they expected. “We have worked hard to obtain another sentence,” the former president of Junts per Catalunya has admitted at first. “It was not what we expected, but it cannot be said that we were not prepared for this scenario,” he later assured at a press conference in the Eurochamber accompanied by the other two MEPs from his group, former ministers Toni Comín and Clara Ponsatí.
The sovereignist leader has assured that his legal team was already preparing “the path to follow” in case the result was adverse. “And we are ready to follow him from now on,” Puigdemont warned, noting that he will defend his fundamental rights “until the end.” Within a period of two months and ten days, his defense can submit an appeal to the CJEU and request precautionary measures to preserve immunity.
“This is not the first time, in the TGUE we have always had to go back and seek a response from the CJUE to our demands,” said the pro-independence leader. “We will do it as soon as possible and in the most ambitious way possible, and we will wait for a favorable resolution because we believe we are full of reasons, and the sentence leaves some cracks and handholds where we can hold on to an appeal story,” the former president pointed out.
However, the MEP has warned that after the ruling on Wednesday “political dissent is more threatened in Europe.” “If this ruling is not reversed, political minorities that defend causes that make states uncomfortable will have greater difficulties in exercising their rights,” he considers.
Be that as it may, the sentence may not have immediate effect. Waiting for what the examining magistrate of the cause of the process in the Supreme Court, Pablo Llarena – who considers that he now has a free hand to issue a new Euro-order –, the defense of Puigdemont and the other two MEPs of Junts, to charge of the criminal Gonzalo Boye and the Belgian lawyer Paul Bekaert, plans to request precautionary measures from the CJEU so that immunity is maintained until there is a final ruling in this matter. In May 2022, it was the CJEU who provisionally restored the former Catalan president’s immunity, after the TGUE had denied it.
In this sense, Comín has detailed that “winning” did not imply “returning to Catalonia immediately” and that “losing” did not mean going to “a prison immediately extradited”. “An administrative court such as the General Court has not dared with our arguments”, lamented the former Minister of Health, who believes that the “return match” will be played in the CJUE since that instance, the last one, “has a stronger responsibility in relation to fundamental rights”.
Likewise, he has remarked that a new front is now being opened in case there is a new Euroorder. “It’s a moderately interesting match,” Comín considered. “Now there is the discussion about whether Llarena should request a new request to issue a new Euroorder. And this is relevant not only legally, but also politically because a request has never been approved with 40% votes against,” he added, alluding to the petition that lifted their immunity in 2021. “With a first reading it seems to us that there is an argument that validates that thesis,” he has sentenced. Comín, who sought the complicity of other members of the Chamber, believes that the petition vote two years ago “was a political victory”, although there was “arimetic defeat”.
In the event that there is a new European arrest and surrender order issued by Llarena, the former president and the former ministers will appear before the Belgian courts as they have done on other occasions. Boye’s strategy, set out in a recent appeal regarding Ponsatí, goes through defending before the Belgian authorities that the Supreme Court must request a new petition to the European Parliament since the one that was admitted was related to a Euro-order that is no longer in force. vigor. In addition, defense sources point out, the crimes are no longer the same.
Boye, for his part, has also pointed out that it is not the desired sentence. “Omit things already resolved by the CJUE, such as the fact that the Supreme Court is not the body pre-established by law,” laments the lawyer, who sees “weak points” in the resolution. “The sentence follows paths, in my opinion, wrong”, Boye has added, who has emphasized that there are contradictions between the TGUE and the TGUE, the two European instances, both based in the duchy.
Another example given by the criminal lawyer is that when the CJEU granted the precautionary measures to the pro-independence MEPs in May 2022, he admitted that there were indications of impartiality in the processing of the request by the president of the commission that reviewed it, the MEP for Citizens Adrián Vazquez , as well as by the speaker, from the Vox group. “The TGUE says that impartiality cannot be questioned and it has entered into a contradiction with the CJEU. It is part of what we will expose in the appeal. There are things that are evident,” Boye stated. “We had never achieved the reason in the TGUE, once again it has been like that,” lamented the lawyer, who remarks that his defendants retain immunity from displacement.
