The Constitutional begins the countdown to amnesty Puigdemont

BarcelonaThe moment of truth has arrived. The Constitutional Court (TC) begins this Tuesday to study the appeals for protection (recursos d'empara) that the leaders of the 1-O Government have presented to it in the face of the Supreme Court's refusal to grant them amnesty. The first case will be that of the former Minister of the Presidency and current Secretary General of Junts, Jordi Turull, and his appeal will serve as an example for the rest: Pablo Llarena and Manuel Marchena have so far refused to amnesty the crime of embezzlement, for which former President Carles Puigdemont and former ministers Toni Comín and Lluís Puig are still being prosecuted, and for which former Vice President Oriol Junqueras and former ministers Raül Romeva, Dolors Bassa, and Turull himself were convicted.

In all likelihood, the resolution that the rapporteur José María Macías, from the conservative sector and opposed to amnestying embezzlement in line with the Supreme Court, will propose this Tuesday, will be rejected by the progressive majority of the TC. This circumstance will open the door to redrafting the report in the next plenary session, scheduled for October 6, so that, then, the court will foreseeably position itself in favor of the appeals and demand that the Supreme Court grant amnesty to Turull and the rest of the leaders of the 'Procés'.

The TC already endorsed the amnesty law last year by rejecting the unconstitutionality appeals presented mainly by the PP, but it has not yet ruled specifically on the suis generis interpretation of embezzlement made by the Supreme Court: since amnesty is only excluded for embezzlement that generates a direct gain; the high court concluded that it could not be applied to Puigdemont, Junqueras, Turull, and the rest because they obtained an indirect gain by saving themselves from paying for the referendum out of their own pockets.

The deliberation on the appeals comes after the support for the amnesty measure by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which ruled out the Supreme Court's other premise for not definitively granting the amnesty: that the financial interests of the European Union were affected by the 1-O referendum.

A few days ago, the investigating magistrate Pablo Llarena also decided not to maintain the arrest warrant against Puigdemont, arguing that the CJEU's position did not resolve the issue of embezzlement. However, the interlocutory order was no longer as forceful as the previous ones, and sources from the Supreme Court itself indicated that they might have to rectify their position if the Constitutional Court upholds the appeal for protection (recurs d'empara) filed by former minister Jordi Turull with arguments that could also be applicable to Puigdemont. The forecast, therefore, is that if the Constitutional Court clearly endorses the arguments of the former prisoners and exiles, Llarena and also Marchena will modify their doctrine and it will not be necessary to resolve all the appeals individually.