The president of the Constitutional Court speaks in public before approving the ruling on the amnesty next week

MadridWith the permission of the Ceuta crisis and the demands for the right to housing, the Constitutional Court is once again at the forefront of political news. Next week it will approve the ruling that contradicts the Supreme Court's criteria on the amnesty law and will order the high court to apply the pardon to the embezzlement attributed to the October 1st referendum. The first verdict of the TC, regarding the amparo appeal filed by Dolors Bassa, will open the door both to ending the disqualification of Oriol Junqueras and Jordi Turull and to the return in freedom to Catalonia of Carles Puigdemont.

This Thursday, three days after his paper emerged, to which ARA had access, and five days before the plenary session that must approve the ruling, the president of the Constitutional Court, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, is intervening in an informative breakfast of the Nueva Economía Fórum at the Real Casino in Madrid.

It is not common for an authority like him to appear publicly. The last time we heard his voice was a month ago in an interview on RNE. He predicted that the ruling on Puigdemont's appeal would be before the end of the year, but he anticipated that the first verdict would be “binding” and would allow the Supreme Court to apply the decision. Two years ago, for example, at the swearing-in ceremony of José María Macías, he demanded “political and institutional respect” for their “decisions and independence” and stressed that “all public powers” are “obliged” to comply with what the Constitutional Court resolves.

The “rules of logic and common sense”

The report by Cándido Conde-Pumpido, which will be approved next Tuesday, October 6, argues that pardoning embezzlement is “the only conclusion reconcilable” with the “rules of logic and common sense” and with an interpretation of the amnesty that “attends to its spirit and purpose” and its “own genesis.” It alleges that the “interpretation fostered” by the Supreme Court is “clearly expansive” and is “opposed” to the “purpose and spirit” of the law. The ruling will directly order the Supreme Court to backtrack and “declare amnestied” the crime of embezzlement in a “preferential and urgent” manner. This should facilitate the return of Carles Puigdemont after Pablo Llarena has opened up to lifting the arrest warrant when the Constitutional Court has handed down the first ruling.

“In an unpredictable interpretation, the resolutions have not maintained the necessary nexus of coherence between the adopted decision, the regulation, and the purposes that justify the amnesty,” the text maintains. Likewise, it underlines that the wording of the law “leads inexorably” to the conclusion that its purpose is to exclude only “the diversion of public funds carried out for personal corruption purposes” and not with the goal of making possible, for example, the 1-O. The draft speaks of an “internal contradiction” in the Supreme Court's reasoning and accuses Manuel Marchena of making an “unreasonable” argument.