The lawyer for former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and former minister Toni Comín, Gonzalo Boye, has argued that the refusal to suspend the arrest warrant open against his clients in Spain so they could go to the Congress in Madrid to promise to uphold the Constitution, as required to take their seats as MEPs, has violated the parliamentary immunity they should have enjoyed from the moment their election was proclaimed. Boye said the decisions taken have "the clear aim of preventing my clients from exercising their rights as members of the European Parliament".
This morning, Boye travelled to the Congress in Madrid, where the ceremony had been organised for Spain's new MEPs to "swear or promise" to uphold the Constitution. He had planned to submit a letter signed by a Belgian notary confirming that they had taken the oath, but the Congress refused to accept it.
Another document, from Boye himself, notes that Spanish law doesn't stipulate that MEPs-elect have to swear or promise to uphold the Constitution verbally or in person and that on 21st May this year, three new senators did so in a legal document.
He says that the interpretation requiring "ritualised rites or verbal formulas" when taking the oath means putting a "rigid formalism" ahead of other considerations, "violating the Constitution itself [...], forgetting the greater value of fundamental rights, and making an exclusive interpretation of the Constitution prevail over another integrating one".
Finally, Puigdemont's legal team asks that other methods should be considered which wouldn't be detrimental to the basic rights of those they represent. Indeed, they suggested a number of possible alternatives: to reconsider and accept the promise in front of a Belgian notary they attempted to submit today, to accept a promise made on their behalf by a lawyer they have granted executive powers, to take the oath via videolink or for a representative of the Commission to travel to Belgium.