Will Carles Puigdemont be able to return to Catalonia during the month of October?

MadridSince the amnesty law was passed in the Congress of Deputies 846 days ago, there has been a question that conditions both Catalan and Spanish politics: when will Carles Puigdemont return to Catalonia as a free man? The return of the Junts leader has been hovering over the legislature from the very first day, has been a repeated demand of the independence supporters, and has become a hope for the PSOE to reweave alliances and complicity with Míriam Nogueras' party in Madrid. Now the Constitutional Court has set the machinery in motion so that—definitively—it may be possible.

And it has done so 23 months after Jordi Turull went there to correct the Supreme Court's refusal to grant amnesty for embezzlement. It was on November 16, 2024, when the secretary general of Junts denounced that Manuel Marchena was making an “extravagant, unpredictable and analogical” interpretation of the law to leave both him and Oriol Junqueras, Dolors Bassa, and Raül Romeva outside the perimeter of the penal oblivion norm so that they would continue to be disqualified until 2030 and 2031. What will the calendar be now?

After the progressive majority has prevailed, the next key date on the calendar will be Tuesday, October 6. That day, two new reports will be voted on: that of José María Macías, who will redo his initial proposal regarding Jordi Turull, and that of Cándido Conde-Pumpido –the president of the Constitutional Court, of a progressive nature– regarding Dolors Bassa. Conde Pumpido's step forward is a maneuver that authorized voices from the Constitutional Court had not seen until now. It can be done, but it is never done. The reason for this move is not clear: it could be that Conde-Pumpido does not fully trust the report that Macías now has to draft or that he wants to promote a more forceful wording to stand up to the Supreme Court. The forecast is that the report on Turull will be voted on first and then the one on Bassa. It could be that one is the winner –predictably the one relating to Bassa made by Conde Pumpido– or that both are approved.

The ball in the Supreme Court's court

Carles Puigdemont could return at two moments. The first way would be to do so after Pablo Llarena revoked the arrest warrant –ex officio or at the request of the parties– which has been in force since November 3, 2017, when it was imposed by the judge of the National Court Carmen Lamela. The second option would be to wait until the trial chamber of the 'Procés' definitively archived the case, a step that the criminal chamber of the Supreme Court would have to take subsequently and after giving the parties a few days to pronounce themselves.

For the moment, sources from Junts consulted by ARA want to be cautious and will wait to make a decision when there are firm resolutions and papers on the table. Just this weekend, Carles Puigdemont avoided giving details in an interview with the British newspaper The Sunday Times. Mind you, he verbalized the desire to want to make an “immersion into the reality” of Catalonia to return to “breathe, touch and listen” to the country. The leader of Junts foresees “two or three scenarios” regarding his first steps in case of a return.

The engine of the Supreme Court

What will trigger the Supreme Court's button? Constitutional Court sources tell ARA that a sentence like this is communicated “immediately” to the parties and to the Supreme Court and that, therefore, one “does not have to wait” for the verdict to be published in the Official State Gazette for it to have binding effects. In fact, sentences of this nature usually take a month to appear in the BOE. For example, the publication of the judgment on Quim Torra’s amparo appeal against his disqualification took 39 days, the one relating to Oriol Junqueras’s appeal against the JEC's decision to withdraw his status as a Member of the European Parliament was waiting for 37 days, and the one regarding Jordi Turull’s appeal against the sentence of the 'Procés' trial was published 27 days later.

From Pablo Llarena’s circle, they anticipate that the investigating judge will need to read the entire sentence to make a decision, but they make it clear that his intention is to resolve the matter “as quickly as possible”. Subsequently, the publication of the sentence in the BOE could interpellate the High Court of Justice of Catalonia and indirectly benefit Josep Maria Jové and Lluís Salvadó, who remain waiting for the Court of Justice of the European Union to rule on their case.