Spain Lifts Arrest Warrant for Puigdemont

Madrid — Carles Puigdemont, the former head of Catalonia's regional government who left Spain after leading a failed bid for independence in 2017, can return home without being arrested after two court decisions on 6 October.

First, Spain's Constitutional Court ruled by seven votes to five that the country's Supreme Court had been wrong to refuse amnesty for the crime of misusing public money in the independence campaign. Hours later Pablo Llarena, the Supreme Court judge in charge of the case, cancelled the Spanish arrest warrants against Puigdemont and two of his former ministers, Antoni Comín and Lluís Puig, "with immediate effect," according to the public broadcaster RTVE, which saw his order.

The background

Catalonia, the north-eastern region around Barcelona, has its own government and parliament. In October 2017 its leaders held an independence referendum that Spain's courts had banned, and the regional parliament then declared independence. The central government in Madrid used Article 155 of the Spanish constitution to take direct control of the region. Puigdemont left the country and has lived since then mostly in Waterloo, Belgium. He made a brief public appearance in Barcelona in August 2024 and left Spain again without being arrested, Euronews reported. Several of his ministers who stayed were tried and jailed.

In 2024 Spain's parliament passed an amnesty law for people prosecuted over the independence campaign. An amnesty is different from a pardon: instead of forgiving one person's sentence, the law declares that certain past acts will no longer be punished at all. The law took effect on 10 June 2024. It was passed under Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, whose government relied on votes from Catalan pro-independence parties, including Puigdemont's party, Junts.

The sticking point

The law covered the misuse of public money, a crime Spanish law calls malversación and English usually calls embezzlement, when the money was spent on the referendum or on promoting independence. It excluded cases where officials gained personally.

The Supreme Court's criminal chamber refused to apply the amnesty to that crime. It reasoned that the leaders had gained personally because they paid for their political project with public funds instead of their own money. Because of that ruling, the arrest warrant against Puigdemont stayed in force even after the amnesty passed.

What the courts decided

The Constitutional Court, which rules on whether courts and laws respect the constitution, heard an appeal from Dolors Bassa, a former Catalan labour minister who was convicted in 2019 and barred from public office for 12 years over the misuse of funds. It ruled that the Supreme Court had violated her right to effective judicial protection, roughly the right to a fair hearing in court, with an interpretation that was "contrary to the spirit and purpose" of the amnesty law, El País reported. It ordered the Supreme Court to issue a new decision declaring her crime amnestied.

The ruling was written by the court's president, Cándido Conde-Pumpido. The five dissenting judges, from the court's conservative bloc, wrote that the majority had overstepped its role by reinterpreting ordinary law, which is the Supreme Court's job.

The same reasoning is to be applied to the pending appeals of other independence leaders, including Puigdemont, Comín, Puig and the former Catalan vice-president Oriol Junqueras, RTVE reported. El País said full application of the amnesty will also let leaders who were barred from office stand for election again.

Llarena's order is not the final word. RTVE reported that it does not yet declare the amnesty applied or end Puigdemont's criminal case. The judge said he will confirm or change his decision once he has the full text of the Constitutional Court's ruling. Until then, police across Spain have been told not to arrest the three men on the old warrants.

What Puigdemont said

Speaking in Waterloo on Tuesday evening, Puigdemont did not set a date for his return. "Nothing is solved today in terms of the relationship between Catalonia and Spain," he said, as quoted in Spanish by the news site elDiario.es, calling the amnesty part of the answer to the conflict but not the whole answer. His lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, has said Puigdemont will return once the amnesty is fully applied. Boye told Catalan public radio and television that the most sensible course would be to wait until after Spain's general election on 29 November, elDiario.es reported.

What happens next

The Constitutional Court must finish publishing its ruling with the dissenting opinions. The Supreme Court must then issue new decisions applying the amnesty to Bassa and the others. Spain votes in a general election on 29 November, the first national vote since the amnesty became law.