Spain's Constitutional Court didn't need to think twice. In today's special meeting, the court's first chamber unanimously rejected considering Cs' appeal against Carles Puigdemont, Clara Ponsatí and Toni Comín standing as candidates in this month's European election. It did the same again two hours later with the three appeals submitted by PP, one for each candidate. The decision comes hours before the official start of election campaigning at midnight.
In their ruling, the Court writes that it believes there "exists no violation of any legally-protected fundamental right" in the case, unlike Cs had argued. They use the same legal arguments in response to PP.
Cs this Wednesday presented an appeal against the decision on Monday by a Madrid court to allow them to stand, overturning the Central Electoral Commission's earlier ruling at the recommendation of the Supreme Court. The anti-independence party wrote that it was "inadmissible for a gentleman who has fled from justice and who works against Spain to have privileges and to represent our country". They added that it's "a disgrace that the Spanish people should have to pay Puigdemont a salary with public money after he carried out a coup d'état".
On Monday, PP leader Pablo Casado had said that "Spanish democracy doesn't deserve this ridicule of seeing how people who are sought by the justice system want to represent our country in a European election to continue doing propaganda paid by our taxes".
The court, however, responds that "the motives alleged cannot be held, strictly speaking, as a true motive for amparo [protection of constitutional rights], because it has no relationship with the violation of a fundamental right". Drawing on its own doctrine, it says that there "cannot exist a violation of constitutional rights as a consequence of a possible violation of the law on the part of another candidate".