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 regarding the amnesty law and will order the high court to apply the pardon to the embezzlement attributed to the October 1st referendum. The TC's first verdict, on 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 to freedom in 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 inauguration ceremony of José María Macías, he demanded “political and institutional respect” for its “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 draft ruling 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 “heeds 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 issued the first ruling.

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