The Constitutional Court approves the amnesty for embezzlement but has not yet applied it to Puigdemont.

MadridThe Constitutional Court's approval of Carles Puigdemont's amnesty is gradually approaching, but there are still steps to be taken. The day after the court admitted his appeal for protection—that is, began to review it—this Wednesday it dismissed a constitutional appeal filed by the Parliament of Aragon against the law that referred to embezzlement. The Constitutional Court upholds the amnesty for this crime, although it says nothing about whether it applies to the cases against the leaders of the Process. The decision received the dissenting vote of the four conservative justices.

The amnesty law established two exceptions under which embezzlement cannot be pardoned: when the acts classified affect the financial interests of the European Union and when the misappropriation of funds would lead to personal enrichment of a financial nature. The ruling written by Judge Laura Díez validates these specificities. On the one hand, because its application is restricted to offenses "that fall within the scope of the state legislature's regulatory provisions," that is, it only contemplates amnesty for the misappropriation of Spanish funds. Already in its first ruling, in June, the Constitutional Court emphasized that the law does not cover "misappropriations that affect interests that transcend those of the Spanish public administrations."

Secondly, the Cortes of Aragon considered unconstitutional the fact that the law specifies that when there is patrimonial enrichment, amnesty cannot be granted, because they maintain that the Penal Code does not make this distinction. The ruling approved by the Constitutional Court responds that, although the Penal Code does not include this "subjective element, it does not prevent the organic legislator from incorporating it when delimiting the protected conduct." "The provisions of the Penal Code are not a constitutional canon, and the legislator is not obligated to comply with them," the judges maintain in their ruling.

Initially, the reporting judge, Laura Díez, had proposed a more extensive wording on embezzlement, which some members of the plenary had interpreted as somehow prejudging the decision that may be taken in the future on the appeals for protection of the leaders of the 1-O referendum. Since this is an appeal against the law in the abstract, it should not give any clues about its application in a specific case, they maintained. They then convinced Díez to withdraw some paragraphs.

First setback at the Supreme Court

Also on the table of the Constitutional Court's plenary session this Wednesday was the constitutional challenge the Supreme Court brought against the amnesty for a Girona activist accused of public disorder. And the progressive judges overturned it, with the sole exception of what they had already established in their ruling last June: that the amnesty cannot discriminate between those who support and oppose independence.