"Junqueras should be at liberty." These were the words of retired Spanish Supreme Court judge José Antonio Martín Pallín, in a short interview with Catalunya Ràdio on Christmas Eve morning. "The Luxembourg court's sentence is clear and his continued imprisonment borders on a crime of unlawful detention," he said. However, the former chief justice also emphasized that "immunity is not impunity". "[His] release has to be immediate for anyone who can read [the ruling]," he said.
Referring to the position of the State Solicitors on the parliamentary immunity of the jailed former Catalan vice president, Martín Pallin says he "doesn't understand" the suspense created in anticipating the position they will take, given the clarity of the ruling on the Junqueras case.
In Spanish justice's case against Junqueras's fellow MEPs-elect Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comín, he detailed that "first, the Spanish authorities must ask for immunity to be lifted because if not, no arrest warrant can be applied" and he asserted that, therefore, the pair "can move freely around all the European territory." "They could even come here," he said.
According to the judge emeritus, the Spanish state would not be able to arrest Puigdemont and Comín if they decided to return. "The only thing that could be done is to hold them for a while, check that they have immunity and then they would have to be let go," he concluded.