A victory, if a late one. The advocate general of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has proposed that the court "overturn" the ruling of the lower European General Court (EGC) of July 2022, which backed the European Parliament's initial refusal to grant a seat to Junts party politicians Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comín in the summer of 2019, after their success in that year's European elections. In the conclusions, made public this Thursday, the Polish advocate Maciej Aleksander Szpunar maintains that the EU court of first instance "committed the error" of not stating that they were legally elected in June 2019. The General Court considered that the European chamber had "limited itself to taking note of the legal situation" notified by Spain's Central Electoral Commission (JEC), which asserted that the Catalan politicians in exile could not be considered MEPs because they had not completed the particular Spanish procedure of swearing on the Constitution. Nevertheless, the JEC had included them in the list of persons proclaimed elected on June 13th, 2019. The ECJ lawyer concludes that the European Parliament "violated Union law" when it left Puigdemont and Comín without a seat. Now, the Court of Justice must rule.
Later, Puigdemont and Comín were able to take their seats in December 2019 (with effect from July 2nd), when the then president of the European chamber, David Sassoli, admitted them following another ECJ ruling - that on the immunity of the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) leader Oriol Junqueras, which established that the status of an MEP is obtained once he has been elected at the polls, and no further measures are necessary. The lawyer of the two Junts MEPs, Gonzalo Boye, lodged an appeal against the EGC ruling, considering that their rights had been violated and that the court had not interpreted the resolutions correctly.
Reasoning
However, advocate general Maciej Szpunar claims that the allegations against the instructions given on May 29th, 2019, as a result of which the chamber's president did not grant the two politicians access to the MEPs reception service, "lack foundation". On the other hand, he proposes to the ECJ that it "annul the judgment of the EGC regarding the refusal of the former president of the European Parliament to recognize Puigdemont and Comín as members of the European Parliament, contained in the letter of June 27th, 2019, and to annul this refusal as well", according to a press release from the court.
According to the advocate general, "the main error committed by the General Court" consists of not having considered that the letter of 27th June, 2019 contained the final decision of the president of the European Parliament to disregard the proclamation of 13th June, 2019, as a result of which Puigdemont and Comín had, in accordance with the Junqueras judgment (of December 2019), acquired the status of members of Parliament. And he maintains: "By adopting the minutes of June 27th, 2019, the president of the European Parliament, on the one hand, called into question the officially-proclaimed election results, despite the fact that the Parliament was bound by the proclamation of 13th June, 2019, which was the official announcement of the results". He adds that, on the other hand, the president of the European Parliament "chose to follow through on the subsequent notifications from the Spanish authorities, which did not faithfully and completely reflect these results".
Violation of Union law
As well, the ECJ advocate general maintains that with his action, the president of the chamber "gave effect to the suspension of the prerogatives of Puigdemont and Comín, arising from their status as members of the European Parliament, in violation of Union law". And he concludes: "Effectively, no precept of this law authorizes a member state to suspend the prerogatives of members of the European Parliament."
In this regard, the lawyer supports the thesis of lawyer Gonzalo Boye, that the European chamber could not remove this protection from them, and that at the same time, the European Arrest Warrants issued against president Puigdemont by the judge Llarena for the 1-O case "were illegal".
While the the ruling by the ECJ is still to come, the Catalan politicians, first with the Junqueras ruling and now this legal positioning, have gained greater protection against the Kingdom of Spain. For his part, with the announcement of his candidacy for the Catalan presidency in the May 16th election, Carles Puigdemont is ending his period as a representative in the European chamber.