The error in the European Parliament report on Clara Ponsatí's immunity case, in which the Catalan MEP was listed as being charged with a crime of which she is not accused, shows that her case has not been studied either by the rapporteur who drafted the text or by the members of the Committee on Legal Affairs who voted in favour of it. This is asserted by the MEP in a formal complaint sent to the president of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, in which she warns that a mere correction of the error in the text is not enough.
On Tuesday, the chamber's Committee on Legal Affairs approved the lifting of Ponsatí’s immunity from prosecution, as well as that of her two Junts party colleagues, Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comín. However, as brought to light by ElNacional.cat, the report prepared by the ultra-conservative Bulgarian MEP Angel Dzhambazki attributed alleged offences of sedition and misuse of public funds to Ponsatí, when in reality the Spanish judge only accuses her of the first.
The following day, the European Parliament corrected the mistake and published an erratum note. Ponsatí warns, however, that this is not enough.
The MEP reminds Sassoli in the letter that she had already protested about the fact that the committee, chaired by Ciudadanos MEP Adrián Vázquez, had assigned a single rapporteur for the three immunity requests instead of one for each file, as established by the regulations, and she attributes the error that was committed directly to this fact, since the immunity requests for Puigdemont and Comín do include the crimes of sedition and misuse of funds.
Ponsatí denounces that this demonstrates that there was a lack of specific evaluation of her case. "This is not a minor linguistic error that can be fixed by means of an erratum, but a serious error affecting the substance of my immunity case," she said.
The MEP considers that the error shows that neither the rapporteur nor the members of the committee who voted in favour of the report had studied the case, which was discussed as "a pack" with those of her two colleagues despite the difference in their situations.
Chair of the Committee on Legal Affairs, MEP Adrián Vázquez (Ciudadanos) / Europa Press
A different result
"Given the specific issues related to an accusation of sedition - an accusation especially problematic as pointed out by German courts, the UN WGAD, Amnesty International, and even the Spanish government - I have reasons to believe that had the report on my case been produced with appropriate attention to my case, the vote in the JURI committee might well have been different," she argues.
Ponsatí notes in her text that the presidency of the Parliament failed to respond to her previous objections to the fact that the same rapporteur had been assigned to all three cases, and she also refers to "the many irregularities" that have been reported during the process of the immunity waiver request as well as the “lack of neutrality of the chair of the Committee”.
She concluded the letter without concealing her indignation at the situation, which she described as "a scandal and an embarrassment" to the institution, and expressed confidence that the president of the Parliament would take the necessary action to remedy it and ensure that the decision on her case is was taken in a way that fully respects her fundamental rights.
In the main image, Clara Ponsatí in the European Parliament this Wednesday together with Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comín / Efe