The uncertainty about the application of the amnesty law to the leaders of the Procés has left a judicial labyrinth open. Waiting to see if the Supreme Court will apply the CJEU ruling, within this labyrinth there is a path that is still unresolved and leaves an open question: in case of a hypothetical non-application of the amnesty, is it possible to open the file for a second pardon to erase what was left pending? At the time, the Spanish government partially pardoned the leaders of the Procés – it was the only possible way after the sentencing court opposed the measure of grace – that is, they forgave them the prison sentence, but kept intact the disqualification penalty that affected Oriol Junqueras, Jordi Turull, Raül Romeva and Dolors Bassa, who were also convicted of embezzlement. This disqualification, for example, prevents the current leader of ERC from running in an election –as he has shown himself willing to do– or to teach.

The Supreme Court has applied the amnesty law to eight pro-independence supporters - grouped into four cases - who were pending it. The decision comes a week after the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union, a ruling that the high court tacitly decided to await. Formally, it had suspended the processing of the four cases following the question of constitutionality that it presented in July 2024. The Constitutional Court's ruling, which did not favor him, arrived in October 2025, but nine months have had to pass for the Supreme Court to have made a move. “The facts that gave rise to this procedure would not offer any doubt as to their subsumption in article 1 of the amnesty law. [...] Consequently, the objective scope of application is met,” conclude the four interlocutory decisions. They are three protesters convicted of aggravated public disorder in the protests following the verdict in the trial of the Catalan independence process, a mayor which attributed the competencies of the schools to make possible the 1-O and the four members of the Parliament's table – with Roger Torrent at the head – who were acquitted of having disobeyed the TC rulings.

The football obsession and the brain drain that we all have at this point in a summer that is already in full climate change have made the scandalous reaction of the Spanish judicial leadership, and of the ultra-nationalist right, to the CJEU ruling on the amnesty pass unnoticed. The summary is as follows. Constitutional Court: will look at it upon returning from vacation. Supreme Court: maintains the arrest warrant for Puigdemont and the embezzlement charge, and keeps the ace up its sleeve of raising new preliminary questions, which would further delay the process by a few more months. The PP: in the words of Secretary General Miguel Tellado, the CJEU ruling does not enter "into the substance of the matter". The substance of the matter is to get rid of Pedro Sánchez and his government, so evil that, according to the PP, it doesn't even support the national team.On the part of the socialists and the partners in Sánchez's investiture, and on the part of those directly affected – the independence leaders now amnestied by the European court – caution, prudence, calculation, and tense calm have predominated. Óscar Puente, the hooligan minister, broke the violin string, who overstepped by inviting Puigdemont to “show up in Spain”. This – since we mention football – is because Puente, like so many others, has for years applied to the certainly serious events that have occurred in the last ten years in the conflict between Catalonia and Spain the clumsy, emotional, and childish logic typical of football. They truly believe that “Puigdemont fled Spain inside the trunk of a car” and, from here, they are easy prey for the narrative they themselves have been building. An uninformed and misinforming, Manichean narrative, which quickly reduces reality to its caricature level. “Is there a favorable ruling from the ECJ? Then let him show up here”. If a minister's analytical capacity is this, the flood has arrived this far.However, what is truly alarming is the attitude of the Spanish courts towards their European counterparts. The fact that a state is a member of the EU means that European law and jurisprudence are incorporated into the legal corpus in force in that state and acquire a higher rank of relevance than "national" law and jurisprudence. The rulings of the European courts are not "foreign" rulings or intolerable interferences. European rulings cannot be postponed, neglected, evaded, or ignored. On the contrary, Spanish courts must respect them, apply them, and enforce them with the same zeal and diligence as if they were "own" rulings. However, this one from the CJEU on the amnesty is particularly difficult for them. And it is understandable, because it highlights the dirty game that Spanish justice and politics (in particular, the Supreme Court and the PP) have played and continue to play, naturally to defend the unity of Spain. The CJEU does not agree with them on anything and, without saying it, says what they are: politicians who act outside of democracy, and corrupt judges.

There are strong, heavy, labyrinthine, relentless states. There are also failed ones. In the case of Spain, I leave the qualifying adjective to you, but the fact is that we would not be talking about either decisive or pragmatic. Perhaps the majority of our society is not either? That is a topic for another day.

The ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) supporting the Spanish amnesty law is a supremely important step towards achieving that this norm can finally be applied without exclusions or restrictions one day. But for now, it is not enough to stop the long chess game that has been played in political and judicial spheres since 2017 – and before – around this issue. It is evident that the reason of state remains present in the attitude maintained by institutions, organizations, and bodies of all kinds, along with the power core of the conservative magistracy, well established at the top of the state's organizational chart. To realize this, one does not need to be a radical independentist. It is enough to have followed the events of recent years with some interest.

The ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on Thursday regarding the amnesty has once again focused attention on who judges our representatives and how. Once the Constitutional Court (TC) determines its position, the final decision on the application of the law to the leaders of the 'procés' will fall to the Supreme Court (TS), given that they were or should have been tried by this body. But why go directly to Madrid?

The amnesty law for those charged in the independence process came into force in June 2024. More than two years have passed and the blockade continues. How much longer will it take to reach all those involved?

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has given a clear endorsement to the amnesty law this Thursday, which has triggered a wave of reactions uniting the independence movement and the Catalan and Spanish governments in a single demand: the immediate application of the law by the Spanish judiciary. The ruling has been received as a "resounding victory", although with the caution of knowing that the final executive decision rests with the state courts. In the words of former president Carles Puigdemont, "the game will no longer be played in Europe but at the Bernabéu, with the referees and the crowd leaning to one side".

The judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the amnesty was a very relevant step to achieve legal backing from Europe for the rule approved in the Congress of Deputies, as it is the first time it has ruled on the measure to end the criminal proceedings of the Procés. It has done so by endorsing the spirit of the legislator: the normalization of the political situation in Catalonia in favor of "reconciliation". However, what are the practical effects of this resolution? When will former president Carles Puigdemont be able to return? When will Oriol Junqueras and the former political prisoners stop being disqualified?

July 14th, the French national holiday, to commemorate the end of the Bourbon monarchy and the establishment of a republic driven by easily embraceable universal values, such as liberty, fraternity, and equality. It was only fitting that in "Casablanca," the "Marseillaise" competed against a Nazi anthem to become the anthem of freedom sung with pride and courage by a group of Free Frenchmen, in one of the most moving scenes in cinema history. It would all be very beautiful if it weren't for the fact that in the name of this fraternal republic, France has pursued languages like Catalan to the point of self-loathing and extinction.It is similar to what the Spanish state has done in Catalonia. What it has done, and what it continues to do:The Supreme Court has ruled that Spanish cannot be excluded from the signage of public educational centers in Catalonia. He says that “Castilian is the official language throughout Spain, which means it is a language that cannot be excluded from communications between public authorities and citizens".As Sebastià Alzamora titles his article today, “if you are Spanish, speak Spanish”, which is what my parents had to hear in their youth during the dictatorship. It's the same old song, when it suits us we are Spanish (especially when it comes to paying taxes that go away and don't serve the well-being of Catalans) and when it suits us (always) our language is not Spanish enough. We know all this by heart and, even so, meanwhile, President Illa went to Madrid yesterday and signed Catalonia's loyalty to the State. A loyalty that, as we see, is not reciprocal and that, by dint of repetition, led to the logical conclusion of half the country wanting independence in 2017. Loyalty is only possible from equality. And what exists between Spain and Catalonia or between Spanish and Catalan is a Catalan subordination to the supremacy of the State over the province. The rest are rhetorical sleight of hand that no one can believe anymore. Or kind, almost pleading, ways of telling the Spanish that the current government of the Generalitat will not organize any October 1st for them. 

President Illa has offered, at an event by Efe and RTVE in Madrid, the "institutional cooperation" and "loyalty" of his government, and has considered that those who criticize the new financing model because Catalonia proposes it and not for its content are "bad Spaniards".

The history of Spanish state nationalism is a history of repressions against minorities. One of the most persistent repressive fronts is the linguistic one: if we were to print all the jurisprudence that has been generated —only in democracy: we don't need to go back to the Decree of Nova Planta— to deprotect Catalan and relegate it from social use, and to reinforce, on the contrary, the presence and use of Spanish, we would have paper to wallpaper the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court, and the High Court of Justice of Catalonia. And with all certainty, there would still be some left over.The new ruling is from the Supreme Court, and it corrects the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC), which has imposed with various rulings the 25% of Spanish in teaching hours, even —or especially— against the linguistic regulations set by the Generalitat. But the brand new ruling from the Supreme Court comes to say that the TSJC's efforts are not enough: now they also rule on the language in which the signage of schools and educational centers must be done. As they themselves say, “signage is not irrelevant”. The ruling states that school signage can be in the bilingual Spanish/Catalan version, but what is certain is that, at a minimum, it must be in Spanish. Argument to support this? “Spanish is the official language throughout Spain, which means it is a language that cannot be excluded from communications between public authorities and citizens". This is an argument that closely approaches the phrase that serves as the title of this article, a slogan that the Spanish state disseminated in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, and the Valencian Community during the Franco dictatorship. It resembles it perhaps not so much in letter, but in spirit.That Spanish is “the official language throughout Spain”, as the ruling emphasizes, is not an accidental fact nor the fruit of divine grace. Without going back to historical explanations, Spanish is “the official language throughout Spain” because the Constitution of '78, in an article 3 that the ruling also cites, establishes it as such in the current democratic stage: Spanish is official throughout the Spanish state and it is a duty for Spanish citizens to know it, while “other languages” (not mentioned by name) are recognized the “right to be used” and to be “also official in their respective autonomous communities” (not co-official, this is a term that further diminishes the official presence of Catalan and which incomprehensibly many repeat like parrots).Therefore, the Constitution enshrines a principle of inequality that serves as a legal argument for a ruling that is ideological and political. There is in this ruling a component of the day and another of substance. Of the day: whoever can do it, let them do it, that is, a bombardment of rulings that could destabilize the Sánchez government through its relationship with Catalan partners, especially Junts. Of substance: an eternal nationalism whose raison d'être lies in the fight against diversity in all its forms. Also (perhaps especially) against linguistic and cultural diversity.

The causes surrounding the PSOE have some common ground. One of these common denominators are the main investigated individuals – José Luis Ábalos, Santos Cerdán, and Koldo García – who appear in different courts. But another is people who had never been involved in politics, who were not initially on the radar, and who have ended up becoming key figures in the ongoing investigations.

July 16th has been circled in red on the calendar for weeks as a key date for the amnesty of the leaders of 1-O. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has endorsed the law, accepting that it fits within European legislation and ruling out that affect the financial interests of the EU. However, the effects of this ruling will go further. The pronouncement is a prerequisite that the Constitutional Court has self-imposed to resolve the appeals for protection filed by Carles Puigdemont, Oriol Junqueras, and the rest of the former councilors, waiting for Europe to provide an argumentative cushion to justify releasing them from criminal responsibility and also applying the law to them. But the path to get here will not be easy: even though a favorable pronouncement from the Constitutional Court is expected in the fall – last June endorsed the fit of the norm within the Magna Carta–, the ball will fall again on the roof of the Supreme Court, which will have the final say. For the moment, sources from the court consulted by ARA explain that, for now, they will not move because they have not made any request to the CJEU.In the Supreme Court, they are cryptic about the strategy they will follow, although sources emphasize that if there are very clear rulings from Europe and the Constitutional Court, they will follow them and there will be extinction of criminal liability. For the moment, they consider that there are none. There is an immediate precedent in which the Supreme Court has not acted with speed. Two years ago, the high court raised a question of unconstitutionality to the TC regarding the case of a demonstrator from Girona investigated for public disorder following the protests of October 2019. On October 8, 2025, that is, nine months ago, the Constitutional Court dismissed the appeal and gave the green light to the Supreme Court to put an end to the criminal case. Despite this, at present, there has still been no movement. Nor has the TC made any move to enforce its ruling, since, according to consulted sources, the young man's defense has not filed any execution incident. Official sources from the Supreme Court assure they have no information on the case.The precedent of the Canary Islands 

Beyond the case of Catalonia, there is an example that highlights the odyssey that fulfilling a sentence from the Constitutional Court can become. We must travel to La Laguna, a municipality on the island of Tenerife. In April 2020, a court in Santa Cruz de Tenerife annulled the article of the statutes of the Pontificia, Real y Venerable Esclavitud del Santísimo Cristo de la Laguna association, which prevented women from becoming members, alleging that it violated the right to equality. The woman who prompted this was Teresa Laborda.In January 2022, however, the Supreme Court overturned the sentence and upheld the exclusion of women from the association, which is defined as a "religious association of knights." Laborda took the case to the Constitutional Court, which ruled in her favor in November 2024. However, a year and a half has passed and there have been no changes, despite the court having blocked the multiple attempts by the association and the bishopric of Tenerife to prevent its application. Given the inaction, Laborda has filed two execution incidents with the TC, but both have been dismissed as premature.Rajoy's reform

The question is what powers the Constitutional Court has to enforce its rulings. What does the law say? The government of Mariano Rajoy, in view of the Process, carried out a reform in 2015 to give the TC execution capacity. During 2016 and 2017, Moncloa filed execution incidents before the TC because the Parliament's board admitted initiatives that unfolded the independence process – which was interpreted as a breach of a previous ruling – and the Constitutional Court passed the facts to the Prosecutor's Office, which filed numerous lawsuits for disobedience up to the macro-case of the Process for sedition.The law goes further and also gives powers to the TC to act ex officio: it can impose coercive fines of 3,000 to 30,000 euros – it was applied against the electoral board of 1-O – or suspend authorities that do not comply with resolutions. Therefore, the Constitutional Court has legal tools, but legal sources aware of the matter assure that the TC magistrates are usually not very belligerent with other judges. Will Cándido Conde-Pumpido openly confront the Supreme Court to enforce the amnesty?Avoid collision

Until now, the TC has wanted to avoid a direct clash with the Supreme Court. The proof is that it has refused to apply precautionary measures such as lifting the arrest warrant for Puigdemont, which would have allowed the former president to return to Catalonia while the proceedings on the appeal for protection and the case in the Supreme Court remain open. Doing so would have implied an unprecedented battle between the Supreme Court and the TC, which Conde-Pumpido has avoided. Of course, the president of the Constitutional Court has publicly warned that "all public authorities are obliged to comply" with what the TC resolves.Politically, this scenario, according to various sources consulted, was addressed at the negotiating table between the PSOE and Junts before the breakdown, but it went nowhere. And here also lies the distancing between Puigdemont and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, as sources familiar with the matter point out that the former Spanish president always conveyed high optimism about the fulfillment of the PSOE-Junts agreements, which later did not correspond to reality.The other possibility: go to Europe

The other card the Supreme Court can play is to go to the ECJ after the Constitutional Court's ruling. An unprecedented move that until now only one court has made: the Seville Court in the ERO case. After being reviewed by the TC, it raised a preliminary ruling to Luxembourg because it considered that the annulment of the sentences of Manuel Chaves and José Antonio Griñán implied a "systemic risk of impunity".The Supreme Court could repeat a similar move in the case of the independence leaders. With what argument? What the Luxembourg court will do next week is rule whether October 1st affected the EU's financial interests, but the Supreme Court has another argument on which Europe will not have ruled yet: it maintains that there is embezzlement because the leaders of the 'Procés' saved themselves the cost of the referendum from their own pockets. "An interpretation that considered the crime of embezzlement to be amnestiable would force us to raise the preliminary ruling in the future," the Supreme Court warned almost two years ago in one of its rulings.

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A ruling by the Supreme Court (TS) confirmed this Wednesday that the immigration law does not allow "hot returns" of migrants attempting to reach Spain by swimming. The court distinguishes these returns from the specific regulations for the Melilla fence, where migrants are not considered to have legally entered Spain until they cross the security line and are in the hands of agents, which allows them to be returned immediately to the Moroccan authorities. With this ruling, the court establishes a precedent based on the case of an Algerian who was trying to reach Ceuta by swimming and was handed over to the Moroccan authorities.

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The Supreme Court will not take the regularization of immigrants to the European justice system. As the high court has explained, it will not raise a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on the decree approved by the Spanish government to regularize the situation of 1.2 million immigrants. Along the same lines, the third chamber of the Supreme Court also dismisses applying the precautionary measure requested by the governments of the Generalitat Valenciana and Aragon, which involved suspending the regularization until the European justice system ruled. In summary, the Supreme Court will continue to study the appeals without resorting to the European justice system.

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That the Supreme Court now allows itself to question the regularization of immigrants carried out by the current government of Spain (the deadline to apply for it ended this Tuesday) tells us several things. The main one, that the high court, with a majority of magistrates from the PP and Vox, is not only well decided to continue the fight for the salvation of Spain through the persecution of left-wing corrupt individuals, or suspects, or those pointed out (“they must have done something”), but has also decided to challenge the policies of a democratically elected government. This is nothing new, but rather —we said yesterday— we have known this at least since the Constitutional Court's ruling against the Statute of Catalonia. Now, however, with Catalan independence movement undone, scattered and poisoned with discourses of hatred and supremacism/racism (defeated, therefore), they no longer need to deal with what the magistrates would call “territorial issues”. Instead, they now prefer to intervene in immigration policy: at every moment, their debate.The Supreme Court's “doubts” regarding the immigrant regularization process are raised by the requests submitted by two autonomous communities, Aragon and the Valencian Community, governed by the PP and Vox, or by the PP with the support of Vox. These are communities with rulers who maintain — they also say this in the Balearic Islands, for example — that the regularization of immigrants will cause employment and housing problems for Spaniards. It seems that mass tourism and uncontrolled speculation do not cause these kinds of problems; on the other hand, giving legal recognition to people who already live here — subjected to labor exploitation and immersed in the underground economy — does cause problems. Or perhaps it is that these parties have also realized that anti-immigration, hate, and racism/supremacism discourses indeed have a great following nowadays and they stubbornly embrace them. And with the legal certainty of the Supreme Court, which gladly accompanies them on this journey.To do so, the Supreme Court looks, and this is new, towards Europe. Traditionally, Spanish justice distrusts and speaks ill of European courts, and has blamed, insulted, and ridiculed them every time they have ruled in favor of separatists or exiled rappers. Now, however, they seek complicity and shelter under the protection of the EU's Migration and Asylum Pact, which came into force on June 12 and is one of the most shameful documents the Union has produced in its entire history. It can be attempted to justify with whatever subterfuges one wishes, but it is the EU giving itself the green light to create detention camps where immigrants will be abandoned to an uncertain and often fatal fate; yes: in non-EU countries, so that it is not seen so much. The Supreme Court uses this to deepen the drift of the Spanish state, according to which the courts take the reins of government as and when they see fit. The Migration and Asylum Pact (the name is already a sarcasm) is, for its part, a giant step for the EU towards its self-destruction.

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The final stretch of the extraordinary regularization process for migrants promoted by the Spanish government is coming to an end with an open judicial front. Given the doubts raised by the Supreme Court about the measure's compatibility with European law, experts consulted by ARA agree that it is unlikely to have immediate effects on the applications submitted. While the legal world points to possible shortcomings in the processing, organizations and groups that have helped migrants with paperwork – often fighting against misinformation and lack of resources and suffering from administrative collapse– are now focusing all their efforts on ensuring that applicants can complete the procedures before the deadline expires this Tuesday.

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As if the Spanish government didn't have enough open fronts with the justice system, another unexpected one has now opened in the administrative chamber of the Supreme Court against the extraordinary regularization of immigrants, which ends this very 30th and has already exceeded one million applications. The Supreme Court, responding to the appeals filed by the Valencian and Aragonese governments, both from the PP, now questions the legality of the regularization based on European regulations. This new judicial blow to the Sánchez government is signed by Carlos Lesmes, a conservative magistrate who was president of the CGPJ and the TS for 5 years; Wenceslao Olea, who was a member of the CGPJ at the proposal of the PP, and Fernando Román García, who was Secretary of State for Justice under Mariano Rajoy.

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The Supreme Court expresses doubts about the legality of the extraordinary regularization of migrants that the Spanish government has promoted and which ends this Tuesday. In two rulings to which ARA has had access, the high court questions the fit of the decree approved by Pedro Sánchez's executive within European law and gives five days to the parties involved against the process – in this case the government of Aragon and that of the Valencian Community, both from the PP – to pronounce on the suitability of raising a preliminary question to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), based in Luxembourg.

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