The Diplomat
The General Court of the European Union (TGUE) yesterday withdrew the parliamentary immunity of the former president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, and the other two JxCAT MEPs, Toni Comín and Clara Ponsatí.
In the sentence, which can be appealed before the highest instance, the Court of Justice of the EU, dismisses “all the reasons” that the three MEPs alleged to try to get the European justice to annul the request that in 2021 approved the European Parliament.
In the first place, the TGUE said that, to make its decision, the European Parliament did not have to analyze “the legality” of the judicial process initiated in Spain against the independence leaders after the referendum on October 1 because “this issue is the exclusive competence of the national authorities”, reports Efe.
Therefore, the European Parliament did not err “by concluding that the aforementioned judicial process was not initiated with the intention of damaging the activity of the deputies”.
The sentence endorsed that the European Parliament would withdraw their immunity, taking into account that the acts that the Spanish justice imputes to them had been committed in 2017, before having acquired their seat as MEPs, that is, at a time when that condition was ” hypothetical”.
The judges also said that the European Parliament did not violate the principle of impartiality despite the fact that the rapporteur for the petition, the Bulgarian Angel Dzhambazki, is part of the same political group as Vox, the party that initiated the cause of the process in 2017. .
The TGUE indicated that this circumstance is “in principle irrelevant for the assessment of its impartiality”.
“It is true that the deputies of the Vox political party, which promoted the criminal proceedings against the three deputies, are also part of said political group. However, this particular situation concerns the deputies who are members of said party, but it cannot be extended, as a rule, to all the members of the political group of the Conservatives and Reformists”, the sentence states.
The TGUE also said that “a deputy, by definition, is not politically neutral” and acts “in the framework of a parliamentary commission whose composition reflects the balance of the political groups in Parliament.”
The TGUE also dismissed the appeal that Puigdemont, Comín and Ponsatí filed against the former president of Parliament David Sassoli, whom they accused of not having defended his parliamentary immunity when the Supreme Court requested the petition.
A few minutes after the sentence was announced, Puigdemont announced on Twitter that he is going to appeal it, so today “nothing ends”.
“Nothing ends, on the contrary. Everything continues. We will file an appeal before the Court of Justice of the EU,” said Puigdemont.
“We have certainly worked hard to obtain another sentence, but we were also paving the way forward in the event that the result was what was reported today,” he continued.
The former Catalan president assured that “today political dissidence is most threatened in Europe.”
“If this ruling is not reversed, political minorities that defend causes that make States uncomfortable will have more difficulties in exercising their rights,” concluded Puigdemont.
The Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop, expressed the Spanish Government’s satisfaction with the sentence, which she considers to be “an unquestionable accolade and support for the Spanish institutions and Justice and also for the European Parliament”. Llop urged Puigdemont to appear before justice.
