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:

In the eyes of the majority of the population, the Senate may seem like a representative chamber with little utility in the day-to-day of parliamentary politics. However, the electoral call has shown that it is a contested terrain because it can become a counterweight capable of pressuring or obstructing the action of the Spanish government, just as the People's Party has done from the opposition over the last few years. But, depending on the majorities that emerge from November 29, the right could even aspire to make deeper changes: even to the Constitution.

Laura Díez (Barcelona, 1969) is a professor of constitutional law at the University of Barcelona and a member of the Constitutional Court since 2023. She speaks to ARA following a key decision on the amparo appeal by former minister Dolors Bassa, which is expected to trigger the full application of the amnesty by the Supreme Court.

The Constitutional Court resolved favorably on Tuesday the first of the appeals for protection against the non-application of the amnesty law, that of former minister Dolors Bassa, arguing that the Supreme Court interpreted it in an “extensive way contrary to the spirit and purpose of the law.” This has led it to annul the interlocutory orders of July 1 and September 1, 2024, by which the Supreme Court repeatedly refused to comply with the law. The ruling is not clear, however, as these annulled resolutions not only affected Bassa but also Junqueras, Turull, and Romeva. In view of this, once the ruling is notified, the Supreme Court can do several things: hurry to study it—as judge Pablo Llarena has announced he will do—and apply it imminently to Bassa, to the four aforementioned people, or to all of them; wait for it to be published in the Official State Gazette and decide, or even wait for all pending appeals to be resolved. Before that, however, Llarena, the instructor of the exiles' case, had to leave the precautionary measures without effect and lift the national arrest warrants, even if with a weak argument and saying that he does so provisionally while waiting to examine the ruling.

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.

The Constitutional Court plans to approve today the ruling by which it will order the Supreme Court to apply the amnesty once and for all. After this ruling, it will be necessary to wait for the Supreme Court to archive the case and for Judge Llarena to annul the arrest warrant for Puigdemont, Puig, and Comín so that they can return to Catalonia without the risk of being arrested.

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.

Normally, the Senate is a secondary chamber in the day-to-day politics in Madrid. Although this term the PP, which has an absolute majority there, has turned it into the scourge of the socialist government – the toughest control sessions for ministers were in the upper house – and the cradle of all the investigative commissions that affected the PSOE. However, in the next Senate elections, also scheduled for November 29, not only are the majorities in the upper house at stake, but there is also, indirectly, a change of majorities in the Constitutional Court on the table.

With the permission of the Ceuta crisis and the demands for the right to housing, the Constitutional Court is once again on the front page of political news. Next week it will approve the ruling that contradicts the Supreme Court's criteria regarding the amnesty law and will impose on the high court that it apply the pardon to the embezzlement attributed to the October 1st referendum. The proposal drafted by the president of the Constitutional Court, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, regarding Dolors Bassa's appeal directly orders the high court to backtrack and "declare amnestied" the crime of embezzlement in a "preferential and urgent" manner. Why was it so explicit? "From what I have read, at times the Supreme Court itself has stated that it would take into consideration the Constitutional Court's doctrine provided that the Constitutional Court had established a clear and precise doctrine. Therefore, we want to establish a clear and precise doctrine," argued Cándido Conde-Pumpido at a breakfast organized by Nueva Economía Fórum.

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.

Some day the history of how the Spanish judiciary conspired to prevent the application of a law democratically approved by the Congress of Deputies, as was the amnesty for those convicted and accused for the 'Procés', will have to be reconstructed, but luckily more than three years after its entry into force, light is beginning to be seen at the end of the tunnel. This Tuesday, September 22, the majority in the Constitutional Court has materialized to remove the last obstacle placed by the Supreme Court, which is to consider that the crime of embezzlement is not eligible for amnesty. The plenary session of the TC has rejected the proposal of the conservative magistrate José María Macías where this thesis was maintained and Jordi Turull's appeal against the decision not to apply the amnesty to him was dismissed. Now Macías will have to draft another proposal in the opposite direction.

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.

The Supreme Court judge who drafted the interlocutory decision that blocks the right to vote for thousands of Spaniards who obtained nationality by availing themselves of the Democratic Memory Law –adopting the PP's thesis that the Grandchildren Law is a “founded, real and serious danger” that could “gravely affect the objectivity and transparency” of the elections– is an old acquaintance of the independence movement. He is Antonio Narváez, who was a magistrate of the Constitutional Court from 2014 to 2023 and, therefore, played a prominent role during the years of the 'Procés'. His name resonates in Catalonia because in February 2021 he stepped aside from the debate on the amparo appeals of the political prisoners against the October 1st ruling. He had to recuse himself after the pro-independence leaders collectively requested his disqualification due to words he had uttered in November 2017.

“The interpretation of the Supreme Court cannot be labeled as surprising or unpredictable, much less capricious or the fruit of an alleged animosity.” The first version of the first draft of the Constitutional Court regarding the amnesty for embezzlement, prepared by the conservative José María Macías and to which ARA has had access, proposes rejecting the appeal for amparo presented by Jordi Turull against Manuel Marchena's decision not to grant him amnesty and to keep his disqualification in effect until 2030. The document, which will be debated at the plenary session of the TC on September 22, fully endorses the thesis of the high court, which avoided pardoning the embezzlement by alleging that the members of the 1-O Government enriched themselves because they did not pay for the referendum out of their own pockets: “The benefit can also be defined as the mere possibility of improperly disposing of funds not previously available, a fact that increases spending capacity and the consequent possibility of acquiring goods and services. Being able to dispose of what was not available already implies a benefit,” the draft argues.

Now it's for real: countdown for the amnesty for the leaders of the 'Procés'. Or that is what was felt this Thursday in the corridors of the opening of the judicial year at the Supreme Court. According to sources familiar with the high court who spoke to ARA, the application of the law to the 1-O Government, including former president Carles Puigdemont, could be triggered after the resolution of the first amparo appeal by the Constitutional Court, without needing to wait for them to be resolved individually one by one. The same voices argue that the first pronouncement “would generate a doctrine” that could extend to the rest of the cases. It is, precisely, the same thing that the president of the TC defended, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, a few days ago in an interview. That is to say, although Carles Puigdemont's case will not be the first one the TC addresses, the arrest warrant against him could be lifted when the Constitutional Court rules on the appeal of former minister Jordi Turull, which is the lead case and, in principle, will be the first to have a ruling, which all sources assume will be favorable. It would arrive in the month of October and would drag the rest along.

On the day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, patron saint of seafarers, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the CJEU, delivered a long-awaited and at the same time highly significant ruling for Catalan and Spanish politics: according to European justice, the amnesty law approved by the Spanish Parliament more than two years ago affects neither the legal order nor the economic interests of the Union. The resolution is clear and unambiguous, leaving no doubt as to the scope of its application.