The long awaited judgment by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) will not facilitate the handing over of president Carles Puigdemont and the other Catalan exiles, contrary to the expectation of the Spanish Supreme Court. Secondly, with regard to the European Arrest Warrants (EAWs) that judge Pablo Llarena will deliver in the next few days to the Belgian judiciary, a path not very different from the previous three awaits, and the political, judicial and media spheres of Madrid - who were already preparing cells in Soto del Real or Estremera prisons and celebrating victory before time - can forget it. Thirdly, a very interesting legal scenario opens up, beyond our borders, since the ECJ has agreed to examine the existence of deficiencies in the judicial system against an "objectively identifiable group", giving rise to the Catalan acronym GOI. Let's stay with this acronym for a moment, because we will be hearing a lot about it in the times ahead, just as at other periods we had to learn what the risk premium was in relation to the financial crisis and become failure with the R transmission rate and the different types of vaccines when talking about Covid-19. Now it is the GOI that will have its moment.
Is the Catalan independence movement an objectively identifiable group that, for being so, receives mistreatment from the Spanish justice system? There is overwhelming evidence that it is. It has been certified by the justice systems of different countries in their decisions not to grant extraditions up till now. For more than five years, since 2017, the Spanish Supreme Court and especially judge Llarena have tried by means of all sorts of procedures, without any effective results. The Penal Code has been amended to bring it into line with European standards, repealing the crime of sedition and reducing prison sentences for misuse of public funds. But with arguments only understood by the judges of the Supreme Court's criminal chamber, the intentions of the legislator have been inverted and the reform has been left as little more than waste paper. At least that is true for the amendment affecting the Catalan referendum trial cases, to which the 'aggravated' variant of misuse of funds, which requires personal enrichment, will be applied, while the new crime of aggravated public disorder will also be included in place of sedition.
The Supreme Court continues to fight its case, obviously. Even its president has predicted that the Belgian courts will have to hand over Puigdemont and the other exiles. He was not so dismissive regarding the new requirement regarding infringement to the rights of an objectively identifiable group and asserted that every court will have to interpret it. The door is open for Puigdemont to escape from Spanish justice once more, depending on the ruling due in February or March on his immunity as an MEP, by, once again, European justice. It is interesting to read the almost 40 pages of the ECJ's decision, especially because of the linguistic forms it uses: prudence, nuances and a road of thorns for the Supreme Court. This is seen, for example, in the case of the extradition of Lluís Puig, when the court first affirms that an EU member state cannot, in principle, refuse to execute an EAW. After that come the exceptions that invalidate the rudimentary affirmative reading, pointing out that a state can refuse the warrant when it gives rise to the infringement of a fundamental right.
There is a broad basis for the defence after the ECJ ruling. The space in which the exiles' lawyers have acted since 2017 in the European courts has not been reduced. The existence of persecution for political reasons of the Catalan independence movement is self-evident. For all these years, the battle has been fought over this issue and there are enough pronouncements by the European Court of Human Rights and United Nations bodies that have pointed this out. One last point: the leap made by the ECJ in transporting the Puigdemont case to that of an objectively identifiable group in denying extradition is enormous. The Supreme Court, and therefore Spanish justice, will be exposed to an in-depth trial on whether or not it violates fundamental rights. And opening up its dirty laundry is something that no state ever likes.