The first sign that the application of the amnesty will not be easy despite the endorsement of the European justice system has been given by the Court of Auditors, which has refused to apply it from the outset, despite being one of those directly named in last week's ruling. The lawyer for Carles Puigdemont, Gonzalo Boye, has filed a brief with the European Commission denouncing Spain for non-compliance with the amnesty and warning of the Court of Auditors' maneuver. In a brief first reported by Vilaweb and to which ARA has had access, he denounces that the deadline for issuing the amnesty has been suspended de facto and that a procedure for allegations has been opened which he not only considers unnecessary, but also asserts that it contravenes the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

“This will all end up in international courts,” predicted the then-President of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, in November 2017. For now, the amnesty – which at the time could not even be imagined – has already passed the validation of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and it is not the first setback that European justice has dealt to the Spanish Supreme Court. From exile, Puigdemont's defense has chained a series of favorable rulings across the continent. A series of victories that, for now, have not served him to return to Catalonia without the risk of being arrested.

The Constitutional Court (TC) will hold the first debate on amnesty for the leaders of the Procés on September 22, as ARA has learned. It will be within the framework of the amparo appeal filed by the former minister and now general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, whose rapporteur is magistrate José María Macías. With this first discussion, the Constitutional Court will begin deliberations that both the Spanish government and the independence movement hope will end with resolutions favorable to the amnesty for former president Carles Puigdemont; ERC leader Oriol Junqueras, and the rest of the convicted or processed former ministers. In fact, this is the step that was already foreseen for the autumn, after the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) concluded that the expenses related to the 1-O "do not affect the financial interests of the European Union. This week there was also a plenary session of the Constitutional Court, but they considered that they did not have enough time to address the issue before the holidays.

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.

Backed by European justice, the amnesty has begun this week on the final stretch for all independence movement victims to leave judicial proceedings behind. To start, in the coming weeks, the twelve CDR members accused of terrorism and the thirty-five political leaders for whom the Prosecutor's Office is seeking 3 million euros from the Court of Auditors, should be the first to benefit from the rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). But at the pinnacle of the State's legal hierarchy, the Supreme Court is resisting accepting that the leaders of the Procés are exonerated from any responsibility, some without even having appeared before it.

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.

Gonzalo Boye (Viña del Mar, Chile, 1965) is one of the leading lawyers of the "Procés", the main person responsible for the legal strategy of the exile, and one of the architects of the amnesty law that has just been validated by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

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?

After the European justice's approval of the amnesty, a couple of immediate questions remain, the first: who remains to be amnestied?Here we explain it: the CDRs (indicted in the National Court for terrorism) and those pending before the Court of Auditors, accused by the Prosecutor's Office and by Societat Civil Catalana, which is claiming five million from them, but then there is a small trickle of cases distributed in various parts of the country. And the other: when can Puigdemont return? Núria Orriols, our delegate in Madrid, reviews all possible scenarios, which include the fact that the Supreme Court has no deadline to rush its decision and could even ask Europe again if embezzlement is amnestible, even though the Constitutional Court had already said that the amnesty was constitutional. The only certainty is that the Constitutional Court will rule in the autumn precisely on whether embezzlement is amnestible. And this is where the political calendar comes in: in Madrid, it is rumored that it will be in the autumn when Pedro Sánchez can announce the call for elections. If Puigdemont arrives before or during the campaign, the consequences are diverse: it helps Junts, it campaigns for PP and VOX against the PSOE in Spain and it helps the PSC in Catalonia. Yesterday Aznar said that "the seditious aggression" could not go unpunished. And it is that in the amnesty two grievances converge according to PP, the patriotic grievance (Spain is not voted for) and that of power, and here is where the two public enemies number one are found: Puigdemont and Sánchez. They want them both in prison. The PSOE governs having lost, thanks to the amnesty agreed with Junts. Aznar, incidentally, recalled that the unity of Spain is basic for the European Union, as is that of Italy or Germany or any other country. Aznar and a good part of Spanish politics put unity first and then democracy, with the mental reservation that without unity there is no democracy. From this tangle between aggravated flag and the power they do not have, there is the reason for the refusal of the Spanish judicial leadership to apply a law that has been approved for more than two years, which is Constitutional and in accordance with Community legislation. Remember the 2006 Statute. We've been the same for 20 years. And the problem is that in these 20 years the country has changed a lot, the world has changed a lot, needs have multiplied and we don't have all the tools. And the parties in Catalonia are too divided to overcome the enormity of the challenge that the future of the country represents. A certain unity of action is a necessary condition.Good morning.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has endorsed the amnesty law this Thursday, thereby dispelling the main doubts of Spanish judges who have so far resisted applying it. The Grand Chamber of the Luxembourg court has resolved the preliminary questions raised by the Court of Auditors – concerning the 35 former high-ranking officials of the Generalitat investigated for the financing of the 1-O and external action – and by the National High Court, in the case against the CDRs in Operation Judes. The ruling comes two and a half years after the law came into force, and could be the definitive breakthrough for dozens of cases that have been stalled for months – some, years – awaiting a response from Luxembourg.

The Spanish legislature will end more or less as it began: debating the amnesty law. But while Pedro Sánchez has long since assumed the political costs, it seems the judiciary still has outstanding bills and it is not clear whether it will want to collect them or file them away. Indeed, the law of criminal oblivion, emphatically validated on Thursday by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), has faced the hostility of the political and media right from the start, but above all from the judicial right, wounded in its self-esteem (and in its patriotism) by what is seen, even before Parliament, the only body with direct democratic legitimacy, decided to annul the severe penalties imposed by a handful of modern Torquemadas on the instigators of the Procés. Undoubtedly, the law has experienced many political obstacles, such as the mines laid in the Senate by the PP majority, the request for dispensable consultative reports, or the intervention of the Venice Commission. But it has also had to overcome the raising of prejudicial questions before the Constitutional Court (TC) — at the request of the second chamber of the Supreme Court of Marchena and Llarena — and before the CJEU — in this case, by the National Court, which is trying the CDRs for terrorism (!), and by the Court of Auditors, which is settling the accounting responsibility for the 9-N of dozens of high-ranking officials —, under the pretext that there were doubts about the law's fit within the Constitution or European law.First, it was the Constitutional Court that reaffirmed the full constitutionality of the law in about twenty rulings derived from appeals from all the autonomous communities governed by the PP and even from the ineffable García-Page. And now it is the CJEU that has ruled in two judgments on the unequivocal adequacy of the amnesty to EU law, recognizing that it has served to reduce tension and that it has acted as a "tool for normalization", as the preamble of the norm mentioned. This fundamental argument reaffirms what the court's advocate general, Dean Spielmann, expressed at the time, who dismissed it as an "auto-amnesty" arising from a political trick. Furthermore, the Court of Luxembourg does not object to accounting responsibility demanded by the Court of Auditors being amnestied, because, as is logical, an ephemeral "disconnection" of Catalonia could not affect the financial interests of the EU, and declares that the law complies with the standards of the European Court of Human Rights by expressly excluding serious crimes and the violation of fundamental rights from its benefits. Game over.

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 judge of the ECJ who has given voice to the endorsement of European justice for the amnesty has mentioned the purpose of reconciliation that drove it. It sounded promising, hopeful, desirable. But the judiciary has already sent enough signals that, in the case of the Procés, reconciliation rhymes with prison. European justice has pointed out to Spanish justice that there is no other way than amnesty and, on the other hand, we will see when Carles Puigdemont returns or Oriol Junqueras is qualified. The contrast is so shameless that a Spanish socialist minister has even stated that “it would not be too much for democracy, which crossed the Pyrenees a long time ago, to reach all the institutions of the State”. Of course, the Minister of Rodalies speaks from the wound of the accusations against Pedro Sánchez’s family, not from those of the Procés, and he is only an ally of the cause of the most elementary sense of justice out of pure political survival necessity. It is nothing new: they tried the political prisoners for rebellion, they were convicted of sedition, and more than two years have passed without applying amnesty for a delirious crime of embezzlement and terrorism for the CDRs. There will be little reconciliation here.

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?

The independence movement celebrates the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to endorse the European fit of the amnesty law. News that, in theory, should accelerate its application by all courts that have so far refused to do so. But there is one that, for the moment, does not feel addressed. The Supreme Court will continue to not amnesty Carles Puigdemont, Oriol Junqueras, and the rest of the leaders convicted of embezzlement, according to sources consulted by ARA. What room does it have to do so? For now, whatever it wants, despite the legal services of Junts and ERC denouncing that it has been breaking the law for months.

Great news: the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) has largely endorsed the amnesty law.It found it to be in accordance with EU law, because it considered that the amnesty is not contrary to the financial interests of the European Union, nor is it contrary to the directive on terrorism (the crime for which some CDRs had been prosecuted). It goes further, emphatically: the CJEU states that the amnesty does not harm equal treatment, in the sense that it was a law only intended to favor some, but rather it was approved "in a real context of political and social reconciliation" and therefore does not constitute a "self-amnesty". With this ruling, the Court of Auditors should file its cases, and the National Court, too. And the Supreme Court, of course. But at the moment I'm speaking to you, the arrest warrant for Carles Puigdemont or the disqualification of Oriol Junqueras is still in place. And it is quite likely that they will wait until autumn to lift them, which is when the Constitutional Court will issue a ruling on the Supreme Court's refusal to apply the amnesty. To put it this way, Carles Puigdemont is one step closer to returning to Catalonia, and now it seems it is only a matter of a few months.The CJEU ruling is great news, but that the amnesty is not fully applied is a disgrace that can only be explained by the "a por ellos!". It is important to remember where we come from: the TS prosecuted the political prisoners for rebellion, a crime that should have required armed violence, it condemned for sedition, which would also have required violence, and now it refuses to apply the amnesty for embezzlement, for which there has also been none. It is a deployment of creative, patriotic justice.The president Illa made a statement in Catalan, Spanish, and English :“I appear before all of you to express my satisfaction and that of the Government of Catalonia for the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union. An explicit ruling, which endorses Organic Law 1/2024 on amnesty for the institutional, political, and social normalization of Catalonia. The highest instance of European justice has spoken clearly: the law complies with European law. Europe says 'yes' to amnesty, Catalonia says 'yes' to the future. The decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union is very good news for Catalonia, for Spain, and for democracy. There is no turning back. The amnesty law is part, with all its consequences, of our legal framework, and therefore, its application is mandatory.”

Tomorrow at 9 the Spain-France game will be played, and banal Spanish nationalism is infiltrating everywhere, including the mobile screens of Movistar customers, which, instead of saying “Movistar” says “with the selection”, regardless of whether the client completely ignores it of the World Cup or the selection bothers them. The performance that states and companies derive from their sports selections explains to what extent sport is also politics and identity is also business. A cruel paradox for so many Catalans who have at some point shouted "neither Spain, nor France, Catalan Countries", and it turns out that tomorrow, it will be one or the other. About M. Rajoy and his comment that France plays without French saying that: first, following their reasoning, Spain plays without Spaniards, and second, that Republican France has felt very offended, but it would be good for them to consider whether the indignation they feel about the racist comment is consistent with the absence of racism in everyday life. Contrary to what this article says, it is not that people like Rajoy bring the World Cup into the realm of identity, but rather that the entire World Cup is a competition of identities (one only needs to look at the anthems, the flags, and the heads of state in the stands). Another matter is what is understood by national identity in each country. But this week there is another important appointment, which is on Thursday, the day on which the Court of Justice of the European Union must rule on the amnesty, specifically on whether the crime of embezzlement is amnestible or not. It is another episode in this judicial quarrel that the Spanish judiciary's refusal to apply the amnesty law as approved by the legislative power more than two years ago, in May 2024, has become. Remember that, to prevent its application, the Supreme Court ruled that, since the referendum was paid for with public money, the leaders of the Process personally enriched themselves because they saved themselves from putting money from their own pockets, like someone who pays for their daughter's wedding with public money (the example is from the Supreme Court). Well, on Thursday the CJEU will rule, but even if the ruling says that the amnesty is in accordance with European law, it will not be automatically applied, but rather then, the Constitutional Court must decide whether the Supreme Court's interpretation is correct or not, presumably it will say no, but this ruling will not arrive until the autumn, practically when Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín and Lluís Puig will have been in exile for 9 years.  

Next Thursday, July 16, the Court of Justice of the European Union will rule on the amnesty. This will be following a question from the Court of Auditors regarding the accounting responsibility of October 1st, in which this state body asks the European judicial authorities if ending the case goes against the financial interests of the EU. But the ruling will have effects beyond that: knowing what Europe thinks is the condition that the Constitutional Court had set to resolve the appeals for protection affecting Carles Puigdemont and Oriol Junqueras. So, is their judicial journey over? Not yet: see the analysis.

From prison, Oriol Junqueras was the head of ERC's list in the Catalan elections of 2017, the general elections of 2019, and also the European elections of that same year. From Esquerra, in fact, they decreed that, as long as repression lasted, Junqueras would be their number 1 in all elections. But this has not been possible for six years: although he is pardoned and out of prison, the president of the Republicans is disqualified until 2031, awaiting whether the amnesty will be applied to him. The party's strategy for 2028 depends on this, in fact.

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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