The CJEU decides this Thursday on the appeal of Junqueras against the European Parliament for leaving his seat vacant

BRUSELAS, 21 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Court of Justice of the European Union will issue a ruling this Thursday on the appeal filed by the defense of the ERC leader and former vice president of the Generalitat, Oriol Junqueras, against the decision of the then president of the European Parliament, the Italian socialist David Sassoli, to declare his seat as an MEP vacant.

The General Court of the EU has already declared inadmissible a first appeal by Junqueras with an order issued in December 2020 in which it considered that Sassoli did nothing more than transmit to the rest of the European Parliament information about a pre-existing legal situation, derived exclusively from the decisions from the Spanish authorities.

The Catalan politician then presented this appeal that the General Advocate of the European court has also recommended rejecting, by means of an opinion last June that is not binding on the Court, although in the vast majority of cases the sentences handed down follow the line marked by previous opinions.

Junqueras was elected MEP in the European Parliament elections in May 2019, but, when he did not obtain permission to go to swear or promise to abide by the Spanish Constitution as required by national regulations, his seat was declared vacant by the Central Electoral Board.

In the plenary session of January 2020, the president of the European Parliament informed the rest of the Chamber of the election of Junqueras as a MEP for the purposes of July 2, 2019 but also that his seat was vacant as of January 3, 2020, as a consequence of the fact that the Supreme Court considered that the independence leader did not enjoy parliamentary immunity under national law and therefore it was not appropriate to authorize his displacement or grant his release.

In his opinion last June, the General Advocate Maciej Szpuna endorsed the first decision, considering that at that time the General Court correctly estimated that the president of the European Parliament could only "start from the premise that eligibility is part of the electoral procedure regulated by the Law of the Member States" and that the European institution "has no competence to control national decisions".

Regarding the allegation of Junqueras's defense that the General Court erred in law by declaring that Parliament did not have powers to review the cause of incompatibility that led to the loss of his mandate, the conclusions of the General Advocate indicate that this claim is based on a non-existent legal rule.

The opinion that argues that the appeal should also be rejected also points out that Junqueras "has not been able to effectively challenge" the origin of the General Court's reasoning regarding inadmissibility.