The magistrate of the Criminal Court of the Supreme Court Pablo Llarena has flatly rejected the challenge formulated against him, as instructor of the case of the processby those prosecuted in the same case, the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and the former councilors Antonio Comín and Clara Ponsatí, considering that it is based on a “manifestly unfounded” case, and that he understands that it could have been used to delay an eventual European order of detention.
In an order, the judge begins by recalling that this is the fifth time that those accused in absentia in the case have promoted an incident of recusal aimed at separating him from the investigation, which has not excluded the fact that recusals have also been filed against practically all of the magistrates of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court that has heard about your matter in one way or another, and an important part of the members of the Constitutional Court.
This fifth challenge is based on the content of a conference given by the judge at the Faculty of Law of Burgos, where, according to Puigdemont and the other two promoters of the incident, Llarena made statements about the eventual approval of an Amnesty Law that would anticipate that may try to prevent its application to the specific case, which would question its neutrality to continue with the instruction.
The magistrate explains that the conference referred to by the defendants took place in a strictly academic space and responded to the analysis of the basic technical criteria for supervising the constitutionality of any legal norm, but without evaluating any specific aspect of a possible Amnesty Law. That is to say, the procedural position of the instructor was not advanced in any of the passages that the recusants themselves culled, but rather a general and open academic approach was made that was highlighted by the media.
In any case, the judge adds, regardless of the content of the conference, its impartiality cannot be considered compromised when the recusants demand their immediate separation from the investigation, and it is impossible for their conference to reflect today any conditions for the processing of the case. , since no Amnesty Law has been promulgated that today can be applied to the case being prosecuted. “The current cause of recusal seeks the immediate removal of the instructor by speculating on my position in the face of a legal provision that does not exist and may never exist, so that consideration today lacks any relevance for the case,” he says.