The Court of Auditors freezes the applying of the amnesty as a result of the leaders of the 'procés' diverted funds for “prohibited purposes” | Spain | EUROtoday

The Court of Auditors won’t apply amnesty for the second to the principle leaders of the course of The Catalan independence motion, which considers that their actions diverted funds for “purposes prohibited by law” and thereby harmed the monetary pursuits of the European Union, is about out within the 56-page ruling with which the supervisory physique addressed this Monday to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU, based mostly in Luxembourg) to formulate a session or preliminary query on the amnesty legislation; that’s, a doc by which it units out the the reason why it considers that this legislation shouldn’t be utilized to this case and asks the European justice system to inform it learn how to proceed.

As EL PAÍS reported final Friday, the Court of Auditors – which held a trial for embezzlement on the finish of 2023 towards former Catalan presidents Carles Puigdemont and Artur Mas, former vice-president Oriol Junqueras and 32 different former senior officers of the Catalan Generalitat – is the primary jurisdictional physique to carry the amnesty legislation earlier than the European courts. The minister accountable for the case, Elena Hernáez, appointed on the proposal of the PP, thus suspends the issuance of the sentence and maintains the precautionary measures adopted, which these beneath investigation confronted with a assure from the Catalan Institute of Finance to keep away from the seizure of their very own belongings.

According to sources from the establishment, the Court of Auditors is asking the CJEU in its ruling this Monday how a number of European guidelines ought to be interpreted on this case: particularly, Regulation 2988/95 on the safety of the EU's monetary pursuits and Article 325 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, on the combat towards fraud and any criminal activity affecting the monetary pursuits of the Union, in addition to Article 4.3 of the TEU (precept of loyal cooperation). The physique that audits the accounts of the Spanish public administrations considers that these rules usually are not suitable with “the extinction of accounting liability” established within the amnesty legislation, taking into consideration, it stresses, that the information of the case usually are not suitable with the “extinction … process implied an “affectation of the financial interests of the EU”.

The Supreme Court also took the initiative a few days ago to try to stop the application of the amnesty law to the leaders of the process. In his case, he presented a question of unconstitutionality in which he called the law “arbitrary”, “discriminatory” and contrary to the principle of equality. In a very harsh ruling issued unanimously by the Criminal Chamber, the Supreme Court conveyed to the Constitutional Court its conviction that this amnesty, in the terms in which it is made, violates the Fundamental Law, and took the opportunity to call for the first time process of “coup d’état” and its leaders, of “coup plotters”.