The legal confusion returns due to the (non)obeyance of the independence leaders who are fleeing justice. In this case, the protagonist is Toni Comín, the only MEP elected from the Juntes in the European elections on 9 June. Despite the fact that the European justice ruled in 2019 that the MEPs are MEPs, with all the guarantees of their immunity, since the results were announcedthe Central Electoral Council has left vacant the seat of the pro-independence parliamentarian who was not present on Monday to comply with the Magna Carta.
“The corresponding credentials have not been issued for failure to fulfill the requirement of an oath or affirmation to comply with the Constitution required by article 224.2 of the LOreg,” said the resolution of the body responsible for ensuring the neutrality of the Constitution. processes. This article of the electoral law stipulates that elected deputies in the European Parliament have a term of five days from the moment they are declared to comply with the Constitution.
“After this period, the Central Electoral Council will declare vacant the seats corresponding to the deputies of the European Parliament who have not complied with the Constitution and suspend all prerogatives that may correspond to them by virtue of their positions, all until such compliance takes place. .”, adds the text of the law on which the Electoral Council bases its decision, which also refers to the Supreme Court's rulings on this matter in 2020.
“The Central Electoral Council is of the opinion that, as long as Article 224.2 of the LOreg remains in force and no national court or court of the European Union questions its validity, the Spanish electoral administration has a duty to apply it,” said the resolution.
However, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) established in 2019 that MEPs are MEPs, with all their prerogatives, from the moment they are elected. He did this in a ruling on the case of Oriol Junqueras, who on that occasion, like Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comín, were not accepted as parliamentarians at the beginning of the parliamentary term because they did not appear on the list of Members of the European Parliament that were accredited by the national institutions. Junqueras was in prison and could not complete the administrative procedures. The former president and the former minister had been living in Brussels for two years and there was an arrest warrant for them in Spain.
Puigdemont and Comín were in parliamentary limbo until January 2020, when they were allowed to take their seats in the Strasbourg Chamber following the CJEU ruling. The former President of the European Parliament, Italian Socialist David Sassoli, then recognised them as full members of the European Parliament. Seven months after the 2019 European elections, the two Junt leaders took their seats in the European Parliament for the first time.
So the ball is once again in the European Parliament's court.
The Luxembourg judges still have a similar case on the table regarding the European Parliament's decision to initially leave Puigdemont and Comín without a seat because they had not complied with the Constitution. In accordance with the Junqueras judgment The EU's Advocate General ruled in April that it was a wrong decision and that the recognition of the Members of the European Parliament takes place at the time the results are announced.
“On the one hand, the President of the European Parliament questioned the officially announced election results, despite the fact that Parliament was bound by the proclamation of 13 June 2019, which was the official announcement of the results. On the contrary, the President chose to follow the subsequent communications of the Spanish authorities, which did not faithfully and completely reflect those results,” says the Advocate General, whose opinion is not binding on the judges of the CJEU, although he tends to agree on most points of the time.