The endorsement of the Constitutional Court to amnesty the embezzlement of the leaders of the process represents the beginning of the end of the resistance of the Supreme Court to apply the measure of grace for that crime. The investigator of the case, Pablo Llarena, has lifted this Tuesday the national arrest warrant that former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont had in force, which will allow his return to Spain without risk of being arrested. And Llarena and the Criminal Chamber are already preparing to sign the amnesty of the four former independence leaders convicted of embezzlement (former vice president Oriol Junqueras and former councilors Dolors Bassa, Raül Romeva and Jordi Turull) and of the three prosecuted in absentia for that crime (Puigdemont himself and former councilors Toni Comín and Lluís Puig).
With this definitive step, the Supreme Court will shelve a case opened nine years ago and that has experienced all kinds of vicissitudes, from escapes to rejected European orders, a trial broadcast live that ended with sentences of up to 13 years in prison, penal reforms to repeal the main crime attributed to them (sedition), pardons and, finally, an amnesty that the Supreme Court has avoided until this Tuesday.
When can Puigdemont return? The leader of Junts can now return to Spain without risk of being arrested because Judge Llarena has already annulled the national arrest warrant that had been in force since October 2017, when he left Spain for Belgium hours before the Prosecutor's Office filed a complaint for rebellion against them and the rest of the Government. The instructor has taken this step after this same Tuesday the Constitutional Court handed down a ruling in which it upholds the appeal filed by Bassa against the Supreme Court's decision not to amnesty him for the crime of embezzlement. This ruling by the court of guarantees establishes the doctrine from which the former Catalan president and the rest of the leaders of the process benefit.
In the resolution issued this Tuesday, the instructor explains that, although the sentence of the amnesty for Bassa has not yet been notified, "the substantial coincidence of the facts and the controversial legal issue" results, for the moment, in the revocation of the arrest warrants, since the Constitutional ruling may affect the basis of the arrest warrants that weighed on the former Catalan president and his two former advisors. For the magistrate, this “supervening” circumstance justifies immediately reviewing its execution “during the necessary time” to fully understand the amparo ruling and decide on its consequences.
When will the amnesty be applied to embezzlement of the process? In the order by which he has lifted the arrest warrants, Llarena avoids saying whether he is going to apply the grace measure and warns that he will not make a decision until he has read the Constitutional ruling in its entirety. However, sources from the Supreme Court indicate that the intention of the Criminal Chamber and the instructor is to amnesty all those convicted and prosecuted by the process as soon as they are notified of the Constitutional ruling on the appeal for protection that Dolors Bassa presented against the decision not to grant her the measure of grace for the crime of embezzlement.
The Supreme Court's calendar will depend on when the ruling approved this Tuesday by the Constitutional Court is notified. The resolution that forces the high court to apply the grace measure cannot be sent to the Supreme Court or to the Official State Gazette (BOE) until the private votes announced by the conservative magistrates to present their arguments against the amnesty are signed. Once they are, they will be sent to the Supreme Court, along with the ruling on the amnesty for Bassa, immediately.
In addition to annulling the arrest warrant, Llarena must also issue the revocation of the prosecution of Puigdemont, Comín and Puig and declare the closure of the case, but he will not do so until he analyzes the content of the Constitutional ruling. In the case of Junqueras, Romeva, Turull and Bassa, it is the Criminal Chamber that has to dictate the closure of the procedure, but it is Llarena who is responsible for archiving the execution that disqualifies them until the years 2030 (Romeva and Turull) and 2031 (Puigdemont and Bassa) for the crime of embezzlement of which they were convicted, which will allow all of them to stand for elections or aspire to public positions.
Will those disqualified by the process be able to stand for elections? The application of the amnesty will allow the leaders of the process who were convicted to run again in elections or hold public office. In 2019, the Supreme Court sentenced the pro-independence leaders to prison terms and disqualification. In 2021, the Government approved a pardon for those convicted that forgave prison sentences. The disqualifications, however, remained in force; that of Junqueras, for example, until 2031. The doctrine established this Tuesday by the Constitutional Court clears the way for the former vice president of Catalonia to run in new elections. The disqualifications will only be lifted after the Supreme Court applies the amnesty.
And now what happens in the Constitutional Court? After resolving Bassa's appeal, the guarantee court still has on the table six appeals registered by the other former members of the Government who were convicted of embezzlement or prosecuted in absentia for that crime. They have all gone to the court of guarantees because they consider that the Supreme Court violated their rights by refusing to apply the pardon measure to them with the argument that the type of embezzlement they committed is not amnestiable. Once Bassa's sentence has been handed down, the guarantee court can deliberate the rest of the appeals one by one or directly apply to all of them the doctrine established in the former Labor Minister's sentence.
