JAUME MASDEU | BRUSSELS 10/08/2020
[Picture] Oriol Junqueras, before going back to prison last September (Mané Espinosa)The Court of Justice of the EU has rejected the appeal of the ERC leader, Oriol Junqueras, to obtain precautionary measures that would allow him to occupy a seat in the European Parliament. In a ruling statement this morning, the vice president of the General Court, Rosario Silva de Lapuerta, dismissed the appeal filed by Junqueras against a decision of the same court in which he was denied precautionary measures against the decision of the European Parliament to declare his seat vacant.
The ruling considers that the European Parliament is not competent to question the legality of the vacancy of the seat derived from the cancellation of his mandate. This is a decision taken by the Spanish authorities and it is not for the European Parliament to verify whether national law on the matter has been respected, nor to verify the compliance of the procedure followed with European Union law. This power must be settled by the Spanish courts.
The case dates back to January 13, 2020, when in plenary session, the European Parliament took note of the election as a MEP of Junqueras from July 2, 2019; but at the same time, it declared the seat empty as of January 3, 2020. That is, based on the ruling of the EU Court of Justice of December 19, 2019, it granted the seat to Junqueras, but at the same time declared the vacant seat. It did so based on the decisions made by the Central Electoral Board and the Supreme Court.
Last January, the European Parliament took note of the election of the ERC president, but at the same time declared the seat vacant
Against this decision of the parliament, Junqueras appealed to the General Court of the EU and also filed a request for precautionary measures. In March 2020, this precautionary claim was dismissed, and today the refusal has been endorsed, against which Junqueras had filed an appeal. Since June of this year, Jordi Solé has held the seat declared vacant by Oriol Junqueras.
The CJEU ruling in the Junqueras case of December 19, 2019 was the one that allowed Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comín to be admitted as MEPs. Very quickly, the day after this ruling, the European Parliament already granted them provisional accreditation as MEPs. The same ruling also enabled Clara Ponsatí to join the European Parliament later, in February this year, thanks to the increase in the number of Spanish MEPs due to Brexit.
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