The Constitutional Court is slow, but it gets there. Today it has accepted to consider the challenge to Carles Puigdemont's investiture as president of Catalonia which had been planned for 30th January. It's been three months since a planned debate which didn't even end up taking place, but the court has finally decided to consider the Spanish government's challenge. This affects any decision which aims to invest Carles Puigdemont as president. The resolution voids any action, resolution, agreement or path related to the candidacy to invest the president from exile at the same time as the Parliament of Catalonia is working on modifying its rules for a hypothetical new nomination of Puigdemont.
The court also warns the Parliament's speaker, Roger Torrent, and its whole governing Bureau of their "duty to prevent or paralyse any initiative which aims to ignore or avoid the agreed-upon suspension". It says there could be penal consequences if they take any decision which contradicts the suspension, even if that falls within their "respective powers".
The court says that "the initial doubts about the procedural viability of the challenge -which derived from its possible hypothetical, precautionary or preventive nature- were objectively resolved by the speaker's decision to postpone the now-contested investiture session until this court agreed on the verdict that it now has to dictate".
The court believes that Torrent's decision to postpone the debate "highlights that the proposal of the candidate for the contested investiture might result incompatible with the precautionary measures" adopted by the court itself at the time, before this decision whether or not it would accept to consider the challenge, namely to suspend the debate if the candidate was not present in person.
The Constitutional Court has now given the Catalan Parliament and the other parties involved 20 days to file their arguments. The decision, reached unanimously by the judges today, includes suspending all the resolutions taken resolutions taken relating to that investiture since 26th January.