New intervention by Spain's Constitutional Court (TC) in the decisions of the Parliament of Catalonia. And a new chapter in the judicial battle between the Catalan Socialists (PSC) and Lluís Puig over the right to vote of the former Catalan culture minister, who has been in exile since 2017. The TC, in a unanimous decision, has backed the PSC's appeal and decided to "declare the nullity" of the agreements made by the Catalan Parliament's Bureau on April 18th and 19th, 2023, which enabled a system that allowed Puig to vote. This 2023 agreement by the governance organ of the Catalan chamber was, in fact, a response to another TC ruling, which, also at the behest of the PSC, had annulled the delegation of Puig's vote arguing that it did not match any of the cases contemplated. As a solution, Parliament promoted a transitory electronic vote to allow the former minister to vote, but now the new court judgment, to which ElNacional.cat has had access, states that, in this case, "there is no exceptional situation applicable that allows for a constitutional exception to the in-person exercising of the right to vote". This decision may have a direct effect on the first plenary session of the new Catalan Parliament, to be held on June 10th at 4pm, as it may put at risk the votes of both Carles Puigdemont and Puig. The final decision will be in the hands of the Parliament's age committee, which will have a pro-independence majority. One of the first reactions from the pro-independence parties came from the general secretary of Together for Catalonia (Junts), Jordi Turull, who via X lamented that "the Spanish parties can always count on the wild cards of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court to counteract the result of the ballot boxes".
The background to this matter goes back to April 2023. A week after the reversal by the Constitutional Court, which annulled the agreements that the Bureau had made in July 2022 allowing Lluís Puig to maintain his delegated vote, the governance organ adopted a political agreement so that the Junts deputy could keep the vote via a new method: the transitory telematic vote. With the support of the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), Junts and the CUP, the Bureau passed an ERC proposal that opted to activate telematic voting "in exceptional situations of particular gravity" that prevent the exercise of parliamentary functions. The following day, the body authorized Lluís Puig's telematic vote.
ERC argued that this measure was transitory, pending a reform of Parliamentary Regulations presented by ERC and the CUP, which contemplated other cases where vote delegation would also apply and proposed the inclusion of telematic voting. However, the initiative was lost due to the early election. For its part, the PSC denounced that this agreement was a "clumsy attempt to contravene the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court". Days later, the Socialist spokesperson in Parliament, Alicia Romero, denounced that the pro-independence parties had sought to use "tricks to avoid compliance with the laws passed by Parliament" and were once again "putting the institutions of Catalonia in a critical situation". "We are not doing it to go against anyone, but to go in favour of Parliament", she concluded to justify the Socialists' registering of an appeal with the TC.
However, the ruling, consulted by ElNacional.cat, argues that the authorization of remote voting by Lluís Puig "does not conform to the interpretation that, in accordance with the Constitution, allows the principle of presence to be excepted, since it cannot be considered as a constitutionally valid circumstance for this case, in which there is someone who has voluntarily decided to evade the action of Spanish criminal jurisdiction and to whom a judicial arrest warrant applies”. The TC shares the view of the PSC, which claimed that the Bureau had, "in an attempt to give the appearance of coverage by regulation" to the decision, approved a transitional regulation which contained "several violations of the parliamentary regulations", "with the only instrumental purpose of justifying and defending this decision" in the case of Puig, and without there being a "real claim of generality".
Decision could complicate votes of Puigdemont and Puig
The Constitutional Court's decision may have an immediate and direct first effect next Monday, June 10th, when the Parliament of Catalonia will be constituted following the Catalan election of May 12th and the new Bureau of the Catalan chamber will be elected. On that day, the decision on the voting eligibility of Carles Puigdemont and Lluís Puig, both deputies elected in the Junts+ candidacy and still in exile, will be the age committee - a provisional board of three MPs selected on the basis of age - which will have a pro-independence majority: it will be chaired by the oldest member of the new house, Agustí Colomines (of Junts+) and will have two secretaries, Júlia Calvet (of Vox) and Mar Besses (of ERC). Now, this reversal from the Constitutional Court may create obstacles to the decision. A third MP who will not be present, but will be able to vote, is Ruben Wagensberg (ERC), who is also in exile, but has medical leave and is therefore able to delegate his vote.
The next key question is: what difference does the absence of the votes of Puigdemont and Puig make to the parliamentary arithmetic? If the two Junts+ deputies who are in exile cannot vote next Monday, the majority formed by Junts, ERC and the CUP will be 57 deputies, the same as the sum of the PSC and the People's Party (PP). Although, right now, an alliance between Socialists and the PP seems far away, if the Spanish conservative party wants to support the PSC candidate to preside over Parliament, it would be the left-wing Comuns who could hold the balance of power. The vote could be held up to four times if there were a tie in votes, but if the deadlock were to remain, the position of speaker in the Catalan chamber would remain in Socialist hands because the PSC is the largest group.
In March 2021, when Parliament was constituted at the start of the last legislature, for which Laura Borràs was elected as president, the age committee rejected the delegation of Puig's vote due to the opposition of the two secretaries: David González (from the PSC) and Alberto Tarradas (from Vox). The president of the committee, Ernest Maragall (ERC), was the only one to vote in favour. In response to this, the CUP ceded one of its votes to the former culture minister as a "show of anti-repressive solidarity".