The Supreme Court raises the tone in the conflict with the Spanish government over the vote of those naturalized under the Democratic Memory Law. The high court has given a five-day deadline to ministers José Manuel Albares and Félix Bolaños to submit the list of the 163,020 people affected by the suspension of the vote for the Spanish elections on November 29th. They must send it to the Supreme Court, the Central Electoral Board, and the Electoral Census Office, and they have until Wednesday, October 28th, at 3:00 PM to do so. The contentious-administrative chamber of the high court does not stop there, but threatens the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes with a possible fine or, even, with criminal liability –which would have to be investigated by the criminal chamber– if they fail to comply with the requirement. The fine would be 1,000 euros and could be “reiterated” until the request is met.

The interlocutory order of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court that has applied the amnesty to Dolors Bassa, Jordi Turull, Oriol Junqueras and Raül Romeva is nothing short of a declaration of war. The Supreme Court says it has felt undermined by the Constitutional Court because the latter has “expanded” to limits “unprecedented in its history” its function as a guarantor of rights, even accusing it of “mutating” its role to become “a final instance with the capacity to review the interpretation of any legal norm subscribed by the Supreme Court”. 

The Constitutional Court does not, for the moment, authorize the vote for people nationalized under the Democratic Memory Law. The high court has halted the appeal for protection filed by the Ombudsman against the Supreme Court's decision to suspend the right to vote for all those who have not proven that they are descendants of exiles. Therefore, there will be 163,000 people with Spanish nationality – 0.41% of the census – who will not be able to vote in the general elections of November 29 if they do not prove that they meet the requirements. Ángel Gabilondo denounced that the Supreme Court's decision violates the rights to equality, to participation in public affairs, and to effective judicial protection. However, the court of guarantees considers that it is “premature” to study the appeal because the Supreme Court opened a period for allegations that has not yet ended. Once it has ruled again, after studying the complaints of those affected, the Constitutional Court could indeed agree to study an appeal for protection.

Those who were political prisoners are already amnestied. This morning, the minister Lluís Puig tweeted:

Two years and four months after it came into force, the amnesty has fully reached those convicted of embezzlement in the Procés trial. The Supreme Court, led by Manuel Marchena, has applied the law to four members of the 1-O Government who were disqualified until 2030 and 2031: Oriol Junqueras, Jordi Turull, Dolors Bassa and Raül Romeva. In this way, they regain all political rights and will be able to run for elections again, hold public office or, for example, return to teaching at the public university. The final green light for the pardon comes just over seven years after the Supreme Court's sentence and five years after they left prison thanks to pardons. The decision, taken reluctantly and entering into a dialectical battle with the Constitutional Court (TC), is Manuel Marchena's penultimate intervention in the judicial persecution of the October 1st referendum. His last dance will be the application of the total amnesty to Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín and Lluís Puig, who are still waiting. Before that, Pablo Llarena will need to conclude the summary, a final step he will take in the coming days.

Pablo Llarena assumes that the Supreme Court is bound to apply the amnesty to Carles Puigdemont, but resists facilitating it. It was expected that this week the investigating judge would conclude the summary proceedings and refer the case against the former President of the Generalitat and the former ministers Toni Comín and Lluís Puig to the trial court of the Procés so that Manuel Marchena could apply the total and definitive amnesty to the exiles – although he first still had to grant a five-day period for the parties to pronounce themselves again–. These are the two resolutions missing for the Supreme Court to put an end to the judicial persecution of Puigdemont. However, the investigator has slowed down the path and has limited himself to dismissing the appeal that Vox filed against the lifting of the arrest warrants that the Supreme Court issued after the Constitutional Court endorsed the amnesty in cases of embezzlement. Llarena thus delays the outcome: he takes one more step, but avoids taking the decisive step, which will have to come in the next few days.

The Supreme Court has suspended the electoral rights of people naturalized under the clean law, a decision that the Spanish government has labeled as "extraordinary gravity" and which has generated a new political battle between the right and the left. While for the PP and Vox it is a way to guarantee the "cleanliness" of the November 29th elections, for progressives it is an unacceptable violation of fundamental rights. However, beyond the noise, what does the decision taken by the Supreme Court on Monday imply in practice? What must the Spanish government do to comply with the precautionary measures and exclude from the census the 163,020 people who have been naturalized through the so-called clean law? The greatest responsibility falls on the State's foreign service and the Electoral Census Office, which is the entity that must in practice suspend the vote of those affected.

It has become a routine operation for civic entities—or directly parties—of the far-right or Spanish ultra-nationalists to take their political demands to the highest judicial instances, and for judges and prosecutors to take on the task of turning them into sentences or resolutions of mandatory compliance for citizens or institutions. This is what is known as the judicialization of politics, a mechanism that was greased and fine-tuned (“fine-tuned” was a key word) during the years of persecution and criminalization of the Catalan independence movement, and which has now reached cruising speed against all enemies of Spain that stand in its way, starting if necessary—as we have also been seeing for some years now—with the government of Spain itself.

The Supreme Court's decision to deny the vote to some 163,000 people who obtained nationality through the grandchildren's law has been interpreted as a declaration of war by the Spanish government. "It is of extraordinary gravity," exploded the Spanish government spokesperson, Elma Saiz, in the press conference following the council of ministers. "These are people who fled a country due to a dictatorship –she remarked–. In a democracy, the right to vote is guaranteed and not restricted".

A setback from the Supreme Court, once again, for the Spanish government. And, this time, on the eve of the November 29th elections and with a matter as delicate as the electoral roll. The high court decided this Monday to reject the appeal by the State Attorney's Office against the suspension of the right to vote for those naturalized through the so-called grandchildren law. An additional provision of the 2022 Democratic Memory Law that allows descendants of Spanish exiles to access nationality. In this way, it maintains the precautionary measures, requested by Iustitia Europa, which were issued on September 10th and which prevent these new citizens from voting if they do not individually prove that their predecessors actually left Spain for political reasons. In practice, ahead of the November 29th elections, this will affect 163,020 people who registered in the Electoral Roll of Absent Residents (CERA) until August 1st of this year, according to the electoral administration, and who had been granted nationality through this route – the date on which the census closes for the next general elections.

In recent months, the PP and Vox have spread suspicions about alleged electoral fraud in two directions: postal voting and the right to vote of those nationalized through the Democratic Memory Law. After Isabel Díaz Ayuso took less than an hour once the Cortes were dissolved to recommend that people not vote by mail –a mistrust that the PP spokesperson has disavowed–, the focus is once again on the Supreme Court, which a month ago blocked the right to vote for thousands of people until they prove that they are descendants of exiles. Following the announcement of the 29-N elections, both Iustitia Europa and Vox have demanded that the Supreme Court act to ensure that the precautionary measures are complied with, since the electoral body called to vote in the elections was closed two months ago, before the high court took the measures. This morning, the Minister of the Presidency, Fèlix Bolaños, warned that if the Supreme Court maintains its decision, the 29-N census will be "altered" and would lose 400,000 people added to the Electoral Census of Absent Residents –CERA– since 23-J.

Mariano Bergés is the lawyer for Dolors Bassa. He defended the former Minister of Labor, Social Affairs and Families during the trial of the Procés and almost two years ago he filed an appeal for protection (recurs d'empara) to the Constitutional Court against Manuel Marchena's refusal to apply the amnesty law to her. The ruling has paved the way for the rest of the 1-O government: it will allow the return of Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín and Lluís Puig to Catalonia and will put an end to the disqualifications of Oriol Junqueras, Jordi Turull and Raül Romeva. The appeal argued that the Supreme Court's interpretation of the amnesty “frontally attacks” the “spirit and purpose” of the norm and “dangerously delves” into the legislative function with a maneuver that “entails the practical repeal” of the law.

3,263 days have passed since he left for Belgium and 847 days since the amnesty came into force, and Carles Puigdemont now has a clear path to return to Catalonia, although he will wait for the final archiving of the case to do so—in a few days or weeks. He will be able to put an end to almost nine years of exile after the Constitutional Court ordered the Supreme Court to apply the amnesty law to the 1-O leaders in a “preferential and urgent” manner and, a few minutes later, Judge Pablo Llarena lifted the arrest warrant that had been in force since November 2017 and which he confirmed in July 2024 with a convoluted justification. The TC now concludes that pardoning the embezzlement is “the only conclusion reconcilable” with the “rules of logic and common sense” and reproaches Manuel Marchena for deciding to “evade the genuine meaning” of the amnesty with an “internally contradictory” interpretation that is “manifestly contrary” to the “purpose and spirit” of the law.

The president of the Constitutional Court, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, fundamentally amends the Supreme Court's refusal to apply the amnesty law and considers that pardoning the embezzlement attributed to the October 1 referendum 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." This is reflected in the report he has prepared, to which ARA has had access, regarding the appeal for constitutional protection (recurso de amparo) by Dolors Bassa, who was Minister of Labor, Social Affairs and Families during the October 1 referendum and is disqualified until 2031. The text argues that the "interpretation sponsored" by the Supreme Court was "clearly expansive," "opposed" to the "purpose and spirit" of the law and "contrary to the defendant," and establishes that Dolors Bassa's rights to effective judicial protection, to access public functions and positions, and to criminal legality were violated.

As we already told you yesterday, the Constitutional Court endorsed the amnesty law. Although the magistrates' deliberations are secret, it has been an open secret (as almost always happens in the Spanish judicial corridors): the progressive majority opposed the proposal of a conservative magistrate who was against it, and now the forecast is that in the week of October 5th, the TC will end up giving the green light to the amnesty. And it would be then that Judge Llarena would have to lift the arrest warrant for Puigdemont, Comín and Puig, and the Supreme Court would have to definitively archive all the cases related to the 'Procés' that it still keeps open. A very bitter medicine for an application of justice that is arrogant and proud.When would Puigdemont return?The ARA delegate in Madrid, Núria Orriols, specifies that the president in exile could choose between three moments to return: once the Constitutional Court has decided, after the withdrawal of Llarena's arrest warrant, or once the case has been definitively shelved. You can be sure that after spending 9 years in Belgium, it won't make a difference to Puigdemont if it takes a day or a month more, and that he will not return until it is clear that they will not arrest him. Another thing is that, once here, some random Peinado-style judge might find a traffic fine he didn't pay or revive the Aigües de Girona case. But beyond the criminal situation, there is the political one. And Puigdemont must decide what he wants to do: whether to go to Parliament to act as leader of the opposition, whether to run again or not, and in turn, Junts will have to see if it is capable of covering, from what was once Convergència, with its connection to big business, the entire independence movement beyond the size of its pocket.Meanwhile, yesterday the Mossos superintendent, Carles Hernández, head of the General Information Commissariat, the police branch on which that unfortunate infiltration of two agents into a teachers' assembly depended, appeared before the Parliament of Catalonia.

Since the amnesty law was approved in the Congress of Deputies 846 days ago, there has been a question that conditions Catalan politics 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, it has been a repeated demand of the independence supporters and has become a hope for the PSOE to rebuild alliances and complicity with Miriam Nogueras's party in Madrid. Now the Constitutional Court has set the machinery in motion so that –definitively– it may be possible.

To no one's surprise, Begoña Gómez, the wife of the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has been sent to trial for embezzlement and influence peddling.It is the news of the day and, at the same time, it was already taken for granted. You know what happens when the episodes of a series are coming to an end, when the writers drown the protagonists with an accumulation of problems? Well, here we are: the Spanish legislature has months left, and Aznar's watchword of “Whoever can do, let them do” is working at full speed. Note that the judge who is sending Sánchez's wife to trial, the judge Juan Carlos Peinado, is retiring next week. He is leaving through the front door, with a big game trophy. Because one thing is that Begoña Gómez has to answer to the law like everyone else, but not everyone is answering to the law in the same way. Carlos Mazón, with hundreds of deaths on his conscience, continues to collect a deputy's salary. It would be touching if it were not pathetic to hear yesterday on TVE a minister of Sánchez, Óscar López, acknowledging that at the beginning of the 'Procés', he did not understand what was happening, and that now he understands everything.

For almost a decade, the return of Puigdemont has marked Catalan and Spanish politics, but now the moment of truth has arrived. It seems clear that the Constitutional Court will grant protection to the leadership of the 'Procés' –this Tuesday it already took the first step– and that the Supreme Court will withdraw the arrest warrant for the former president. This is confirmed by both TC sources and Supreme Court sources, and Puigdemont's entourage also gives credit to this path. They say, they say... that the former president is now indeed returning. The scheduled calendar is as follows: this Tuesday, September 22, there was an initial debate at the Constitutional Court in which a majority of magistrates positioned themselves in favor of the amnesty for Jordi Turull and against the proposal by the conservative rapporteur José María Macías to reject it. As a result of this, the report will move to the next plenary session, which will be on October 6, where it is expected that President Conde-Pumpido will present a proposal favorable to the amnesty of Dolors Bassa, that it be approved by a majority, and that it also have effects for Puigdemont. In other words, it would be at this moment that the Constitutional Court would firmly endorse for the first time the amnesty for the crime of embezzlement related to the 1-O and would open the door to his return.If everything goes according to plan, when this TC ruling is published, which may be a few days after the decision of October 6th or 7th, Llarena will be bound by it and could proceed, even on his own initiative, without notifying the parties, to withdraw the arrest warrant for the former president, Toni Comín, and Lluís Puig. This would imply that Puigdemont would no longer be in the state security forces' alert system and could already circulate freely within the Spanish state without being arrested.However, at this point his case would not yet be completely archived: at the same moment Llarena would have to dictate the conclusion of the summary and send it to the Supreme Court chamber, which after asking for the opinion of the parties (they usually have about five working days to do so), would decide whether to close the case definitively also by virtue of the endorsement of the appeal for protection to the Constitutional Court. When exactly would Puigdemont return? He does not want to advance anything and everything will depend on the content of the resolutions, but he could choose up to three moments to return: once the TC has decided; waiting for the withdrawal of Llarena's arrest warrant, or once the case has been definitively archived. From his environment, however, they prescribe prudence and remember that whenever it is, we are talking about October, November or at the latest December – provided everything goes as planned.The implications of the return

The fact that Puigdemont is returning to Catalonia opens a new phase both in the Principality and in Spain.

The Constitutional Court has activated the countdown for Carles Puigdemont's return to Catalonia. It has done so by endorsing the application of the amnesty law to the embezzlement attributed to the Procés, as ARA has learned. As expected, the progressive majority imposed its criteria and rejected the proposal of the conservative José María Macías, who was in favor of rejecting the appeal for protection (recurs d'empara) by Jordi Turull –Minister of the Presidency during the 1-O and current secretary general of Junts– and validating the criteria of the Supreme Court, which until now has refused to exonerate the crime of embezzlement. After an hour and a half of deliberation, he was left in the minority.

Supreme Court magistrate Pablo Llarena now refuses to amnesty Carles Puigdemont until the Constitutional Court orders him to do so, because he finds that the —devastating— ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union must not have enough consistency for a patriotic judge like him. Clad as Don Tancredo, Llarena digs in his heels and says that the CJEU ruling does not serve as a legal basis to amnesty Puigdemont, given that he considers the Supreme Court's interpretation of embezzlement has not been reviewed. The answer comes by itself: then let them review it. Above all, because the idea of “embezzlement” that was wielded to convict the leaders of the Procés was a new display of judicial inventiveness on a par with the accusation of rebellion, which ended up being dismissed. Embezzlement was not, because they needed charges to add years of prison. But the inconsistency of the accusation was the same.Llarena's reasons for not granting amnesty to Puigdemont also hold no water. Not only that, but they must be very close to prevarication, given his insistence on disobeying not only the amnesty law, but also a ruling from a high European court which, as a judge practicing within an EU member state, he has the obligation to abide by, comply with, and enforce. However, it is understood that Llarena's response is not addressed to legal experts, nor even to citizens with a minimum of critical spirit, but to the media outlets that applaud demonstrations of bullfighting pride. It is as if Llarena were saying that, faced with the hemlock of having to amnesty an enemy of Spain, he will not do so unless at least a Spanish court orders him to (even if it is a court, the Constitutional Court, which the ever-equanimous Esteban González Pons defined two years ago as “the cancer of the rule of law,” despite the use and abuse the Popular Party made of it when it held a majority). Llarena does not care that he has repeatedly made a fool of himself before European justice with his international arrest warrants against Puigdemont. He has seen that it does not work, but his reaction is to maintain the arrest warrant within the territory of the Spanish state: if Puigdemont sets foot there, he will be automatically arrested, a scene that has been the judge's wet dream for nine years. To save Spain, naturally.The fact is serious, but it seems anecdotal because in these years we have seen the Spanish justice system commit so many absurdities, and of such magnitude, that this stubbornness of Llarena seems like little in comparison. It serves as a reminder, in any case, of the fact that the CJEU ruling not only represents an endorsement of the amnesty law (which dismantled the entire rule of law in Spain, according to the right and the extreme right), but also exposed, to the point of scandal, the televised shame that was the Procés trial. And it also reminds us that the judiciary, converted into a political weapon of conservative ultranationalism, remains the most serious problem of the many that Spanish democracy has.