Madrid (EFE) a crime of disobedience in the “procés”.
That day, the former counselor of the Catalan Government chaired by Carles Puigdemont decided not to go to the Supreme Court after alleging that same day that she had two commitments in Brussels that were “incompatible” with her summons in Madrid.
An argument that, in view of the rebellion that he has maintained during the five years that he was on the run from Justice, says Llarena in his order, reveals that “parliamentary functions are nothing more than the excuse for a new neglect of their procedural obligations ”.
After his failure to appear, the examining magistrate of the case for the Catalan independence process of 2017 consulted the Prosecutor’s Office and the State Attorney, who were inclined to summon Ponsatí again, although this Wednesday Llarena finally chose to issue a national order of detention against her with the aim of making her available to the court and informing her of her prosecution.
“Voluntarily and unjustifiably”
The judge affirms that everything indicates that Ponsatí “has voluntarily and unjustifiably disregarded the judicial summons”, although he specifies that the order may be annulled if he voluntarily appears before him, as did the defendants Meritxell Serret and Anna Gabriel, who also fled the country and ended up returning to Spain.
Regarding the parliamentary obligations that he claimed for not appearing, Llarena emphasizes that Ponsatí was summoned before the Supreme Court on the morning of April 24, while the political commitments that he alleged were scheduled for the afternoon, reasonably compatible through the videoconference request.
But also, given the advance notice with which she was summoned, the former counselor had “a wide margin to warn” of her “difficulties” to “attend to her political responsibilities and request the adjustment in the summons” and, nevertheless, “she avoided this provision and it was decided to present an exculpatory document that has not been followed by any proposal to attend to the judicial appeal.
The judge refuses to paralyze the case, as Ponsatí had requested
The judge mentions some public statements by the former counselor, in which “she boasted of having no intention of attending the court summons” and recalls in the same way that Ponsatí left Spain “immediately after her possible intervention” in the “procés” and “He personally opposed the United Kingdom handing it over” to the Supreme Court “to answer for the responsibility that is aired in this process.”
In the same way, Llarena rejects Ponsatí’s request to paralyze the case because there is a demand for protection of parliamentary immunities before the European Parliament.
Ponsatí, who fled after the unilateral declaration of independence in 2017 to avoid being prosecuted for the illegal referendum on October 1, crossed the Franco-Spanish border by surprise on March 28 to return to Catalonia, without turning herself in to the authorities despite her order to detention.