Puigdemont cannot be granted amnesty for embezzlement, Supreme Court says

Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena has reiterated that former president Carles Puigdemont cannot be granted an amnesty for embezzlement for his role in the independence push.

The decision also affects former ministers Lluís Puig and Toni Comín, as all three filed appeals to the court after not being granted an amnesty when the law came into force.

Politicians would have been granted an amnesty if the law had not listed any exceptions and included all amnesty for all misuse of public funds while promoting the 2017 independence referendum. The text states that embezzlement does not require a public official to increase their wealth but to avoid paying a cost from their pocket and using public funds to expense it.

The text reads that those under investigation "decided to pay those costs using taxpayer money," considering the 2017 referendum was not part of the government's responsibilities.

Regarding a Supreme Court magistrate's vote in favor of Puigdemont, Comín, and Puig, Llarena states that in the over 200 years of history of Spain's court, not a single embezzlement case has been granted an amnesty.

Llarena’s judgment also clashes with the amnesty granted by the Catalan High Court to senior pro-independence politicians in their embezzlement cases as they had different leadership positions to Puigdemont, Comín, and Puig, as they just managed the public funding for a third individual.

The amnesty law has, so far, benefited over 100 people, most of them law enforcement agents. The bill pardoned individuals who have been investigated, accused or charged with a wide range of crimes, including embezzlement and disobedience.

The Constitutional Court is expected to rule on the amnesty law appeals in the upcoming months.

The original amnesty proposal covered those prosecuted from January 2012 to November 2023, but the revised version extends this period back to November 2011.

Estimates of the number of beneficiaries under the law vary widely. Based on the first draft, the pro-independence civil society organization Òmnium estimated that around 1,500 people were to benefit, while the Socialists estimated the number to be around 300.