The European Union's General Court (EGC) has refused to accept the appeal of jailed Catalan politician Oriol Junqueras against the European Parliament's decision to declare his seat vacant.
The EU court of first instance in Luxembourg has concluded that the European Parliament has no competence to review the decision of the Spanish authorities on the annulment of the mandate of the ERC leader as an MEP.
In addition, the EGC says that the European chamber was unable to oppose the decision of the Spanish Supreme Court that suspended Junqueras's status as an MEP due to his conviction in the Catalan independence referendum trial, even though the European Court of Justice recognized a year ago that he had been properly elected to office and had, as a consequence, acquired immunity from prosecution an an MEP. Thus, despite the European court rulings that have affirmed Junqueras's rights, today's General Court ruling states that the decision of the European Parliament cannot be the subject of an appeal for annulment.
The court recalls that verifying compliance with the Luxembourg judgments is the responsibility of the courts of the Member States and, ultimately, of the EU courts themselves. This Tuesday's General Court decision can still be appealed to the higher European Court of Justice in the last resort.
A year of appeals
In January this year, the European Parliament noted the election of Junqueras as a Member of the European Parliament with effect from 2nd July 2019, but then noted that his seat has been declared as vacant with effect from 3rd January 2020. This decision was taken after a Spanish adminstrative authority, the Central Electoral Commission, declared Junqueras ineligible for his position as he had been sentenced to a custodial sentence, and the Supreme Court then agreed that the ERC leader could not travel to the European Parliament to be sworn in for his office or to process the request for the suspension of his parliamentary immunity.
The EGU had already precautionarily rejected the Catalan polician's request last January for the European Parliament's decision to be suspended until there was a final decision on the appeal. The General Court's argument for rejecting the interim measures was that "the judge of interim measures cannot direct orders undermining entities that are not parties to the dispute, such as the Spanish authorities in this case", and as a result, it ruled that the application was inadmissible.