Almost a year ago now, the judge of the Supreme Court paul larena went to the European justice to try to prevent the Belgian refusal to hand over the ‘ex-conseller’ Luis Puig It was a precedent that made it impossible to hand over other fugitives, such as the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) will hold this Tuesday the hearing in which, after listening to all the parties, the answer will be known.
It will not be immediately, because the forecast is that the General Advocate of the CJEU do not make your opinion known until approximately a month has elapsed after hearing all the parties. Predictably, it will be another month later when the court’s ruling will be known, which in most cases endorses the previous criteria. Legal sources consulted by EL PERIÓDICO insist that the CJEU will rule on how the rule should be interpretedand between that and how the judges apply it there is a stretch, in which the own conditions that each country imposes at the time of handing over those claimed also intervene.
The resolution, scheduled for within a couple of months, will determine the margin of the countries to process the European orders
The main question raised by Llarena was whether Belgium can refuse a deliverybecause he considers that the court that claims him is not competent to judge him, despite the fact that this is part of the internal law of each country, as he resolved with Puig, when he declared that the Supreme was not the one who could claim him and, incidentally, that Spain would have violated their rights.
Background
Between the time Llarena formulated her questions and the moment they will be resolved, the CJEU has ruled on other issues. Among them, one stands out faced Poland and Holland. From the Puigdemont’s defense is considered a precedent that will mean confirmation that a new European order cannot be issued against the ‘ex-president’ with signs of prospering, but from the Supreme Court it is not so clear.
The decision of the CJEU will be added to the doctrine established in the conflict between Poland and the Netherlands to mark the path of European cooperation
Although the sources consulted they are not optimistic about the criteria that the CJEU may adopt Regarding the claim of the court, they maintain that the European justice in this matter endorsed the delivery of persons claimed by courts elected by political formations, as could be interpreted in a broad sense that they are the Supreme Court justiceswhose choice corresponds to General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), who is elected by the Cortes. And that to consider that there has been a violation of rights, a systemic crisis of independence of the judiciary must be proven, which they do not believe can be applied to Spain.
Immunity
It so happens that the preliminary questions raised by Llarena to the European justice they kept paralyzed the euroorder already issued. In fact, the Italian justice appealed to that suspension when Puigdemont was arrested in Sardinia. It was the criteria set by the General Court of the European Union (TGUE) when it refused to provisionally return the immunity that had been raised by the European Parliamentby admitting the petition that had been submitted by Llarena, pending the final pronouncement that the CJEU will make on that protection.
After his arrest, Puigdemont tried to force the Supreme Court to rule on the Spanish procedure, but the high court did not change his claim. As this newspaper reported after the Italian setback, if the former Catalan president sets foot in Spain, he will be arrested to answer for the crimes for which the members of his Government have already been convicted. The only difference will be in other countries: if European justice ends up agreeing with him, a new euroorder will not be issued to try to arrest him again, and if not, he should be arrested for delivery to Spain.
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High court sources justify the lack of changes in his claim in that the preliminary ruling question raised by Llarena only refers to compliance with the European orders for one Member State to hand over a defendant to another, not to the crimes for which Puigdemont was declared in absentia in his flight from Spanish justice. However, they are also aware that the TGUE not only considered the claim paralyzed pending the resolution of the preliminary questions, but also established that he should be allowed to attend the sessions of the European Parliament.
And this would make it necessary to set up a system that would allow him to remain at the disposal of the Spanish justice system and, at the same time, be able to travel to Brussels with guarantees that he would not abscond again, something that would only be feasible with imaginative solutions that would be determined at that time.