The speaker of the Catalan Parliament will go to Strasbourg to guarantee an investiture debate without interference. As he announced in a statement from the chamber this Tuesday, Roger Torrent will bring a request for precautionary measures to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). This action follows the arguments which the chamber has already presented to the Constitutional Court in which its lawyers ask the court to not accept into consideration the Spanish government's appeal against Carles Puigdemont's investiture debate.
The application's objective is "to protect Puigdemont's rights to stand in a meaningful investiture debate". Such applications need to be presented by individuals. For this reason, Torrent has put it under his name, as the chamber's highest representative, but he will propose other deputies to add their names.
According to parliamentary sources, "the ECHR will be asked to act as a guardian for political rights and specifically Puigdemont's right to political participation". This application for precautionary measures from Strasbourg is restrictive and reserved for very specific cases. If accepted, it will be resolved within 24 hours "and could open a real and effective path to Pugidemont's investiture", the sources say. It hasn't yet been filed, nor is there a date set for it to be.
Torrent is aware that it's an appeal method reserved for extreme cases in which there could be "irreparable damages", but wants to try it regardless.
Arguments
As for the arguments the Parliament presented to the Constitutional Court this Tuesday, they include an application for the Spanish government's challenge to be rejected and for the court's precautionary measures to be revoked. They required Puigdemont to be present in person for the debate and to seek permission to attend from the Supreme Court. The arguments are only signed by lawyer and former ERC secretary general Joan Ridao.
Calling on the report the Council of State wrote before the appeal, the Parliament argues that the court's precautionary measures "are of a preemptive and purely hypothetical character which would cause them to be unjust". The filing notes that Torrent's decisions to propose Puigdemont as candidate and call the investiture debate were legal and cannot be preemptively contested.
On the other hand, the chamber's legal services also allege that preventing Puigdemont's ability to be invested president would violate his right to passive suffrage and the active suffrage of the citizens who voted for him. It also says that the proposed candidate enjoys parliamentary immunity and that, as such, cannot be arrested except in cases of flagrant transgressions.
Finally, the Parliament says that the court has usurped functions which aren't its own, because they aim to determine with their precautionary measures how the investiture debate should be carried out, which they believe to exceed their authority.