Puigdemont appeals to the Constitutional Court to suspend his arrest warrant.

Former President of the Generalitat (Catalan government), Carles Puigdemont, has filed an appeal for protection before the Constitutional Court (CC) in which he requests that the amnesty denied by the Supreme Court be granted and, as a precautionary measure, that the national arrest warrant he still has in force for the "procés" be suspended.

In his appeal, Gonzalo Boye, the former Catalan president's lawyer, asks the Constitutional Court to suspend the arrest warrant, concluding that it "lacks the support of a final conviction," in a context in which the legislature "has expressed its willingness to extinguish the former president's criminal liability through an organic law whose constitutionality has already been confirmed."

Having requested urgent precautionary measures, which are more urgent and do not require a report from the prosecutor, the judges—who are scheduled to hold their final plenary session next week—will have to respond to the request more quickly. If they deny it, the request would be processed as a precautionary measure, after seeking the opinions of the parties.

For Puigdemont, the suspension of the arrest warrant not only "does not harm the constitutional interests of third parties nor seriously disrupt any protected legal rights," but also "preserves institutional balance, effective judicial protection, the presumption of innocence, and democratic participation."

After describing the arrest warrant as "constitutionally inadmissible," the appeal requests its suspension as a precautionary measure—and, as a subsidiary measure, as a precautionary measure—to prevent "an elected representative from being deprived of his liberty in a context of the judicialization of the Catalan political conflict."

In this regard, the appeal recalls that the Constitutional Court recently ruled in full constitutional conformity with the Amnesty Law, the non-application of which gave rise to the appeal for protection. Therefore, suspending the arrest warrant "reinforces, rather than weakens, the principle of legal certainty and the ordinary functioning of institutions."

"The judicialization of political action, when it becomes an instrument to prevent access to or retention in public office through procedural mechanisms without a final conviction, constitutes a systemic threat to constitutional democracy," believes Gonzalo Boye.

For this reason, he argues that the precautionary measure requested in his appeal "is not only a procedural guarantee, but a constitutional requirement linked to the defense of the model of parliamentary democracy enshrined in the Constitution."

For the former president's defense, the denial of amnesty for the embezzlement charge attributed to Puigdemont reveals "a strategy of judicial resistance" to the law by the Supreme Court, which violates the principles of separation of powers and the rule of law.

An interpretation that, in his opinion, "lacks any basis in the legal text" and "contradicts the express will of the legislator," in a "blatant violation of the principle of criminal legality and the principle of legal certainty."

According to Boye, this interpretation by the Supreme Court, "outside the law," affects Puigdemont's right to personal liberty, including the right to free movement throughout the European Union, as well as his right to equality before the law, "due to the disparate treatment he receives compared to others prosecuted for similar offenses."

For the lawyer, "the sum of these violations reveals a strategy of judicial resistance to the effective application of the Amnesty Law," which constitutes "unlawful interference by the judiciary in the legislature's sphere of jurisdiction, violating the principle of separation of powers that governs our constitutional system."

Faced with this "systematic and misuse of jurisdiction," Boye calls for a "clear, firm, and restorative response" from the Constitutional Court as the "supreme interpreter of fundamental rights."