EU Court annuls Puigdemont immunity waiver over “lack of impartiality”

Brussels – Revoking the immunity of Carlos Puigdemont and other Catalan separatists was a mistake, tainted by a lack of impartiality. For this reason, the measure cannot be upheld, and the Court of Justice of the EU, with a judgment, has annulled the decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Parliament. The judges in Luxembourg are writing a new page in the never-ending story of the Catalan independence movement. 

On 1 October 2017, the Catalan independence party, then in power, held a referendum on the autonomous region’s independence from Spain.  Deemed unconstitutional, the Spanish public prosecutor, the Spanish state attorney, and the VOX political party initiated criminal proceedings against several individuals, including Carles Puigdemont (then president of the Generalitat de Catalunya), Antoni Comín y Oliveres, and Clara Ponsatí i Obiols (then members of the government of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia). The three were then elected to the European Parliament in the 2019 elections, with the Spanish Supreme Court asking the European Parliament to waive their immunity. In the end, the waiver for all three was voted on in March 2021, but with a political flaw.
 The rapporteur for the revocation of immunity measure was Angel Dzhambazki, a Bulgarian MEP for the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), the same group to which the Spanish party VOX belongs, which was the promoter of legal action against the three Catalans. “For the sake of consistency, Parliament must also exclude a rapporteur who is a member of a political group to
which belong Members of the political party that instigated the criminal proceedings against the Member whose immunity
is under discussion,” the Luxembourg judges argue. According to the Court, “such a rapporteur could be perceived as not being impartial and his or her
appointment would be contrary to the right to good administration.” That is why the decision must be annulled. 

The EU General Court also overlooked the lack of impartiality, which, according to the Court of Justice, “erred in finding” that the rapporteur’s membership in the ECR group, the same group to which the members of the VOX political party belong, “had no bearing.” Furthermore, the General Court failed to take into account “a particularly relevant factor with regard to the requirement of impartiality.” On 6 March 2019, Dzhambazki, who was to become the rapporteur for the text, organised an event on the theme “Catalonia is Spain” in which the Secretary-General of the political party VOX intervened. It should be noted that this event took place within the Parliament.