The Spanish Constitutional Court has rejected an appeal by a group led by Catalan writer Jaume Cabré, against the decision of the Supreme Court to suspend Carles Puigdemont as a member of the Catalan Parliament. The full court unanimously dismissed the appeal for constitutional protection as lacking legitimacy. Cabré and the group asserted that the rulings of the Supreme Court on 20th February and 10th July, 2019, suspending the former Catalan president from his position as an MP violated his fundamental right to participate in public affairs, as enshrined in Article 23 of the Spanish Constitution.
The ruling states that the appellants do not fulfill the conditions required to make a legitimate complaint "because "they are not, in relation to the fundamental right they invoke, in a subjective position different from that of any citizen who may be concerned that Article 23.2 of the Constitution should be respected".
The court insisted that the fact of having participated in the elections to the Catalan Parliament on December 21st, 2017 did not differentiate the legal position of the appellants over any other Catalan citizen with the right to vote.
The political circumstances at that time were that Puigdemont had been re-elected as leader of the largest political group (JxCat) in the pro-independence bloc which had won a majority in the Catalan election of December 21st, 2017, following the independence process and the imposition by the Spanish government of direct rule over Catalonia. However, the attempts by Puigdemont and other re-elected pro-independence candidates in exile or jail to take office were opposed by Spanish judicial rulings.
Turull and Rull's appeals also dismissed
Last week, the Constitutional Court also agreed unanimously to dismiss the appeals filed by two of the Catalan political prisoners, Jordi Turull and Josep Rull, against the decision of Spanish Congress's proecedural bureau to suspend them automatically from their positions as Spanish MPs because at that time they were in pretrial detention and in the middle of their trial for the 2017 Catalan referendum.
Turull and Rull appealed against the resolutions of the Congress, dated May 24th and June 11th, 2019, under which they were suspended as MPs in application of a clause in Spain's Criminal Procedure Act which relates to those accused of terrorism or membership of armed gangs. Specifically, it orders the removal from public office of any "person integrated or related to armed gangs or terrorist or rebel individuals" once their prosecution for an alleged offence had been decreed.
Puigdemont, to head the lists
These rulings by Spain's Constitutional Court come just days after Carles Puigdemont confirmed his intention to run again in the parliamentary elections scheduled for February 14th, 2021. Puigdemont announced last Wednesday his willingness to head the list. "For everything that is at stake, for everything that we must make possible, for everything that we have not given up on and will not give up, to ensure that in the long list of presidents of Catalonia there is finally a woman, Laura Borràs, I will propose to the executive of JxCat to head the list for Barcelona", argued Puigdemont.