Constitutional Court expected to uphold amnesty law in June

Spain's Constitutional Court is expected to uphold the amnesty law for pro-independence figures in a June 24-26 plenary session, as reported by TV3 and Catalunya Ràdio and confirmed by the Catalan News Agency (ACN). 

The court is set to declare the amnesty law constitutional, and reject the appeal by the conservative People's Party (PP) by six votes to four.

The vote will be carried out in a monographic plenary session with the amnesty as the only item on the agenda.

However, this endorsement of the law will not automatically allow former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont to return from Belgium, where he has been living since 2017.

The amnesty law for those involved in Catalonia's independence push received final approval by Spain's Congress on May 30, 2024.

It's expected that the draft of the text of the rapporteur responding to the PP appeal will be distributed among judges in early June so that they can debate it. 

In recent months, the Constitutional Court has studied more than 50 appeals on the amnesty law, the highest number it has ever received for a specific issue.

Constitutional ruling

The president of the Constitutional Court, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, had already announced that there would be a decision on the amnesty before the summer.

He said that the court will respond to the PP's appeal with a "reasoned and well-founded ruling, upholding what is appropriate and rejecting what is inappropriate."

This week, Conde-Pumpido also rejected a request to suspend the debate in the Constitutional Court on the Amnesty Law until the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issues a ruling on preliminary questions raised by various Spanish courts.

In doing so, he dismissed the request of three judges – César Tolosa, Enrique Arnaldo, and Concepción Espejel – who wanted a specific debate on whether to submit a preliminary question to the CJEU and to delay the broader discussion of the amnesty until the EU court had ruled.

Ten of the twelve Constitutional Court judges will deliberate on the Amnesty Law, as conservative Macías has been recused and progressive Campo has abstained from the matter.

Among the remaining ten judges, six are progressives and four are conservatives. Therefore, the law is expected to be upheld.