2023-04-24 21:48:17
Clara Ponsatí, former counselor of the Catalan Generalitat who fled from justice after the failed declaration of independence in October 2017, has once again stood up to the Supreme Court. The Junts MEP did not attend this Monday the appointment she had with Pablo Llarena, investigating magistrate of the process, who had summoned her to inform her of her prosecution for a crime of disobedience – which does not carry a prison sentence – after the politician returned to Spain by surprise at the end of March. Ponsatí was summoned at 11:00 a.m., but her lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, had informed the court beforehand that she would not appear because she had a job in the European Parliament and because she had filed an appeal for protection in that institution claiming that she is protected by “parliamentary immunity”. . Ponsatí, who has posted a photo on Twitter confirming that he had returned to Belgium (“It rains in Flanders”, he wrote), returned to Barcelona a month ago, and this Sunday he had been signing books in Barcelona for the day of Sant Jordi.
Judge Llarena has made a move after the non-appearance and has given Ponsatí’s defense five days to provide the “documentary justification of having filed a claim for protection” in Europe on his immunity. The magistrate grants the same term to the parties (Prosecutor’s Office, State Attorney’s Office and popular accusations) to rule on the absence of the MEP and on the reasons that she has alleged for missing the appointment in the Supreme Court this Monday. One of the options is for them to request her arrest again.
The criminal horizon of Ponsatí —one of the faithful advisers to Carles Puigdemont, and who on more than one occasion has defended the need for the independence movement to assume the possibility of fatalities to achieve secession— was cleared after the entry into force on January 12 of the reform of the Penal Code agreed by the Government and ERC. The change in regulations implied the repeal of the crime of sedition and modified that of embezzlement, forcing Llarena to review the prosecution of those who fled from process. Until then, the former counselor was prosecuted for sedition —a crime punishable by between 10 and 15 years in prison and disqualification—, but now she is only prosecuted for disobedience, punishable with disqualification and a fine.
Ponsatí did not want to reveal his move until this Monday, although on Sunday he already suggested that he would not go to the Supreme Court. “Tomorrow I will work, which is Monday,” he declared in Barcelona, where he signed copies of his book Many and no one in a booth: “One day or another we will go to Madrid, I don’t know, who knows… European capitals are always interesting”, he had also said in a previous act. Early this Monday, on TV3, his lawyer stated: “I don’t know if he is on his way to Brussels or already in Brussels. He has work ”. Minutes later, Ponsatí herself, who has been an MEP since 2020, published her tweet implying that she was in Belgium. Being outside of Spain, her policy cannot be stopped, since there is no international arrest warrant against her.
The Supreme Court Prosecutor’s Office has endorsed the ability of Judge Llarena’s instructor to issue an arrest warrant against the former Catalan counselor without having to ask the European Parliament for permission, in a letter where the public prosecutor opposes the appeal filed by the Junts leader against the resolution by which the magistrate agreed, precisely, to annul said order, reports Europa Press. The text responds to the appeal for reform that Ponsatí’s defense filed against the order of March 28 for which Llarena decided to release her to appear this Monday in the Supreme Court.
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On TV3, the lawyer for the independence leader has also opined that “there is no legal reason” why Llarena has to take a statement from Ponsatí “let alone order his arrest.” In his letter, Boye insists that his client is protected by his parliamentary immunity, but he also justifies his absence because, he says, it is a “public fact” that the Industry, Research and Energy and Economic and Monetary Affairs committees of Parliament European Union, of which Ponsatí is a part, “have sessions” this Monday: “Which, logically, would in any case be incompatible with any commitment of any kind hundreds of kilometers from Brussels.”
“Judge Llarena has an obsession that I do not share,” Ponsatí herself said in the European Parliament after missing her appointment with the magistrate. “This obsession with him appearing by force is against European law […] I am maintaining the dignity of Parliament”, he added, informs Manuel V. Gomez. And he has concluded: “Judge Llarena is not competent […] They should take a course in European Law. This level of legal autarky…”.
Ponsatí, who fled at the end of October 2017 —along with the former president Carles Puigdemont and other former advisers— to avoid being prosecuted, crossed the Franco-Spanish border by surprise on March 28 to return to Catalonia, without turning himself in to the authorities. After giving a press conference, she was detained by the Mossos d’Esquadra in the middle of the street – a national arrest warrant was pending on her – and taken before the duty judge in Barcelona, who released her after the decision was made by the magistrate Pablo Llarena.
This Monday, the Junts MEP has charged the Mossos for that episode: “Hiding behind an illegal arrest warrant does not make their actions legal, nor does it excuse their cowardice. The little show that he organized in front of the journalists was unfortunate, with no other need than to show the owner that you are obedient ”, she said, in reply to the chief commissioner of the Catalan Police, Eduard Sallent, who has defended in Catalonia Radio the legality of his actions.
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