Spain’s Supreme Court refuses to apply amnesty law to Puigdemont

Spain’s Supreme Court on Monday dealt a blow to former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont’s plans to return to Spain from self-imposed exile in southern France, upholding embezzlement charges against the separatist leader, thus refusing to apply the controversial amnesty law.

The Supreme Court refused to apply the controversial law that annuls pending legal action against Catalan nationalists for separatist activities, including a 2017 referendum and failed independence bid, to both Puigdemont and two former regional ministers, Euractiv’s partner EFE reported.

This rejection means that Puigdemont, leader of the right-wing separatist party JxCat, will not be able to return to Spain for the time being, despite the amnesty law coming into force on 11 June, as the judge upholds the national arrest warrants against him.

Shortly after hearing the news, Puigdemont reacted on X, accusing the judge of acting like the Italian mafia by refusing to apply the new law to him.

“Toga (a judge’s robe) Nostra”, Puigdemont stated on his X account, referring to the Sicilian mafia.

In addition, the Supreme Court decided on Monday that it would not apply amnesty to pro-independence leaders sentenced to political disqualification for illegal actions committed between 2011 and 2023, the period covered by the controversial law.

Among the separatist leaders sentenced to political disqualification is the former vice-president of the Catalan regional government, Oriol Junqueras, of the left-wing separatist ERC party, as the judge ruled that the crime of embezzlement of public funds to which he was convicted could not be pardoned.

The law pardoning Catalan separatists – backed by the left-wing coalition government but angering conservatives and right-wing groups – aimed to move the country forward and resolve the most serious constitutional crisis Spain has faced since the restoration of democracy in the 1970s.

However, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Puigdemont and his collaborators could not be pardoned for embezzlement because they had benefited “personally” by using public funds to hold an illegal pro-independence referendum in October 2017.

The court found that the pro-independence leaders had diverted public funds for their own benefit by ‘approving’ the costs of the unconstitutional referendum to the Catalan public administration.

They used “public funds of the Catalan administration” to finance for their pro-independence project instead of paying for it out of their own pockets, charging “taxpayers’ money for the cost of initiatives or personal desires that they themselves directed and deployed”, according to the Supreme Court.

The court cited the article of the law that prohibits amnesty for embezzlement in cases where the “purpose” was “to obtain a personal benefit” and where those involved “did with the assets of others entrusted to them what they could not or did not want to do with their own assets”.

The other reason the court gave for not applying the amnesty was that the alleged actions of the independence leaders had potentially affected the economic interests of the European Union.

While the decision can still be appealed, the Supreme Court’s decision could affect the stability of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s (PSOE/S&D) coalition government with the left-wing Sumar platform and forming a new government in Catalonia following snap elections in May.

Sánchez’s government not in danger

The stability of Sanchez’s progressive coalition depends directly on the parliamentary support of Puigdemont’s JxCat party and the ERC party, as well as the support of the two main pro-independence parties in the Basque Country, the radical left EH-Bildu and the moderate nationalist PNV.

In return for Puigdemont’s parliamentary support, Sánchez had to make generous political concessions. In addition to the amnesty law, the government has written off €15 billion of Catalonia’s debt to the central government.

Despite the judge’s decision, Sumar’s spokesman and Culture Minister, Ernest Urtasun, said on Monday that he was not worried about the progressive executive’s stability and predicted that Sánchez would finish his term (which ends in 2027).

Meanwhile, PSOE sources expressed their respect for the judge’s decision on Monday, although they stressed their disagreement with the Supreme Court’s arguments.

According to the PSOE, the Supreme Court has applied “political considerations” that were “surprising and unnecessary for the jurisdictional work that judges are entrusted with”.

(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)

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