Joy and satisfaction. This is how Carles Puigdemont, Lluís Puig, Toni Comín and Clara Ponsatí have received, at least publicly, the ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU that this Tuesday has tried to define and delimit in which cases Belgium could continue to deny arrest and extradition orders Coursed from Spain.
“Today the sentence leaves extraditions in a dead end. It places so many conditions on the presentation of new Euro-warrants that in practice it makes them unfeasible,” said the former president in an appearance with his colleagues and lawyers at the European Parliament facilities. For them, the CJEU has ignored the conclusions of the general lawyer, issued last July and which were unequivocally negative for their interests. And not only that, but it would have supported the decision of the Belgian Court that refused to hand over Puig (who, unlike the rest, is not a deputy, has no immunity or was claimed for sedition) claimed his status as an “objectively identifiable group”, as Catalan independentistas.
In its decision, the Grand Chamber of Luxembourg says that, as a general rule, an EU state cannot reject Euro-orders from its neighbors. Doing so is something “exceptional” and must be based on the fact that there are “systemic or generalized deficiencies” in a country like Spain or that it is very clear that a “court is manifestly incompetent.” A priori neither of the two things is fulfilled, but the language of the court, as interpreted by the defendants, not only would allow for verifications to be made and it would not be something automatic, but in the end it would definitely be giving them the reason.
Something that, in addition, they maintain, will have immediate repercussions in the decision of the General Court of the EU on the case of their request. “The CJEU pronounces on the preliminary ruling presented by Judge Llarena and concludes that an EU Member State cannot deny the execution of a Eurowarrant for the reasons Belgium did. The way is paved for the delivery of the fugitives of justice”, has celebrated at the same time, and in the opposite direction, Adrián Vázquez, MEP for Citizens and the president of the Committee on Legal Affairs of the European Parliament, the person in charge precisely of processing the requests to lift immunity.
Puigdemont has made reference to a paragraph of the sentence, number 78. According to that reading, also highlighted by his lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, the CJEU would be supporting the Belgian sentence by which Puig’s extradition was denied, which argued that the Supreme it was not the competent body and that there were doubts about the rights of those claimed, relying on a report from a United Nations working group. As it is a decision that Belgium made under the Euroorders Framework Directive, they maintain, any other that is requested again will have the same result, “because Belgium did it well.”
In addition, the independentistas are recognized in a concept included in the sentence, that of an “objectively identifiable group.” The text of the CJEU expressly says that the Belgian judicial authorities cannot deny the execution of an arrest warrant “on the grounds that a person runs the risk of being prosecuted, after his surrender to the issuing Member State, by a court lacking jurisdiction over such an effect”. They do not have this power, “unless that judicial authority has objective, reliable, precise and duly updated elements that reveal the existence of systemic or general deficiencies in the functioning of the judicial system of the issuing Member State” or deficiencies that “affect the judicial protection of an objectively identifiable group of people to which the interested party belongs in light of the requirement of a court established by law, which implies that the affected parties are deprived, in general, in said Member State, of a channel effective legal system that allows control of the jurisdiction of the criminal court that is to prosecute them.
According to Puigdemont, in a very singular reading, they would be within the category. “We are Catalans who want independence and consider that it is a nation, and the CJEU incorporates that into the conditions for rejecting a Euro-order. Ground for political struggle opens up”; he has affirmed stretching much further what the judges say. The “legal channel” clearly exists in our country, regardless of whether they, as regional deputies, should be tried or not by the Supreme Court.
It is to that nail that his lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, has grabbed. “It is a very good sentence that changes the legal scenario and elements that we have been demanding for five years are recognized. The CJEU comes to establish that the Supreme Court is not the competent court for these facts based on article 6.1 of the European Convention. The sentences are read them in their entirety. The assessment is tremendously positive in general and personal terms. Belgium did well and this is reflected in the sentence. It also recognizes a collective struggle. It is not defending people but concepts and they have been ratified today and will have consequences sooner than late in the petition request,” Boye said. “It gives the instruments to continue fighting in this procedure that should never have started and says that the analysis must be lowered to the specific individual, which is what Belgium did.”
According to them, it does not follow from today’s decision that Belgium has to prove a systemic failure of the Spanish Rule of Law to deny the order, “but the day they want, we will prove it”, the lawyer said proudly. “We do not have to prove anything, the Supreme Court has the ball to analyze its lack of competence and if it wants to submit its criteria to the scrutiny of national courts of Member States again. Our next step is to go eat, because the ball is on another roof”, he has settled, ruling out that the change in the classification of crimes in Spain “does not play a role. This is not about names, it is in fact that they are not criminal.”
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