The TC tries to fix with Puigdemont the “mistake” he made with the Statute

The change is so substantial that high court sources recall the “mistake made with Pérez Tremps”, In reference to the decision that in 2007, during the processing of the Statute appeals, the plenary session took to remove the magistrate from the deliberations Pablo Perez Tremps, because before joining the court he had made a report on the matter, despite the fact that it is normal among professors, a common fishing ground for electing Constitutional magistrates.

“By accepting to set it aside, the court majorities were modified and, predictably, also with this, the final sentence that was issued”, in which several articles were annulled and others were maintained as long as they were interpreted in accordance with the Constitution, sources highlight of the high court consulted a El Periódico de Catalunya, newspaper of the same group, Prensa Ibérica, as this newspaper.

lack of quorum

The challenge led by Puigdemont tried to remove Arnaldo and Espejel from the resolution of the ‘procés’ resources, such as already achieved with Cándido Conde-Pumpido and Antonio Narváez, that they voluntarily withdraw in the face of similar incidents, a situation to which the one who was vice president of the TC at the time contributed greatly, Encarnacion Roca, was willing to estimate the star of the second.

Under its new composition and new attitude, that of agreeing between the two existing sensitivities a unitary position, the plenary session of the Constitutional Court led to reject outright the challenges because it understood that he had to shield himself against the attempt to leave him without a quorum In order to resolve the three appeals against the Supreme Court ruling still pending, those of Oriol Junqueras, Dolors Bassa and Joaquim Forn, and the multiple that were interposed against any decision of the courts.

If the incidents had not already been estimated, but simply processed, only eight of the 12 magistrates with whom the plenary has to resolve these appeals would have been able to participate, the minimum for it to be able to do so, since neither Narváez nor Conde-Pumpido could participate, but neither do those whose impartiality is alleged to be compromised.

For this, it would have been necessary to wait for him to recover Alfredo Montoya, who is on sick leave, and reject the attempt to remove the president of the court from Arnaldo’s, Pedro González-Trevijano, for the friendship attributed to them. Without both, the minimum eight would not be reached.

Inborn ideology

This being the case, the court unanimously rejected all the incidents. in application of article 4.1 of its regulatory law that confers on it the obligation to defend its own jurisdiction. Specifically, it says that “it will delimit the scope of its jurisdiction and will adopt whatever measures are necessary to preserve it, including the declaration of nullity of those acts or resolutions that impair it, “which he understands was intended with the challenges raised.

But it also establishes a new criterion by which the ideology of the Constitutional magistrates is defended, which it differentiates from those of the ordinary jurisdiction, whose apex is the Supreme Court, for various reasons, such as that, unlike the fact that they have no replacement , but also that its members are elected from different instances to reflect the feelings of the entire Spanish society and maintain an “enormous political balance”: the Government and the General Council of the Judiciary elect two magistrates each, while with the support of three fifths the Congress and the Senate, at the proposal of the regional parliaments, elect another four, respectively.

They choose from among highly qualified and experienced people, which is why many have spoken before on many aspects, which cannot mean that for this reason they are excluded from the subsequent legal debate. Preventing a magistrate from participating in the deliberations alters that ideological balance that the Constitution conferred on him, point out the consulted sources, which suggest that European courts, who will end up seeing the issues of the ‘procés’, have also been shielded from initiatives that they tried to alter its operation.