The three political leaders allege that the Supreme Court is clearly overreaching its authority by acting as if it were a legislator, and that they are being denied fundamental rights, such as the right to be democratically elected

Oriol Junqueras, Dolors Bassa, and Raül Romeva’s counsels have submitted an appeal before the Constitutional Court requesting protection regarding the failure to apply the Amnesty Law in their cases of embezzlement, convictions which the Supreme Court maintains. They also request the precautionary lifting of their disqualification as public officers that all three are currently serving.

In their writ, the lawyers are highly critical of the action of the Supreme Court, since they consider that it departs from the principle of legality and that by doing so leads to grave consequences for the rights of the three defendants, for whom the penalties, which the court maintains, should be declared extinct, allowing full political restitution.

They therefore consider that only the democratically elected legislative has the legitimacy to pass law, and that a judiciary will only be respectful of the separation of powers if it limits itself to the application of the law, since it is not up to the judges to bestow meaning upon the statute. They claim that interpreting the Amnesty Law, as the Supreme Court has done in the two sentences handed down, implies ignoring the mandate that is inferred in the text of the Law itself, and that this “interpretation” of embezzlement clearly crosses the limits of judicial purview, dangerously encroaching upon that of the legislative.

In this regard, they recall the dissenting opinion of one of the judges of the Supreme Court, which elaborates on this idea: neither the literality of the law, nor the will of the legislator, nor historical or recent precedent, leads to the interpretation offered by the majority opinion of the Supreme Court, adding that “an interpretation of the law can never lead to its annulment,” as has happened in this case.

For this reason, and so that the harm to the three appellants shall not be irreparable, their counsels request precautionary measures, lifting the penalty of disqualification from holding public office. The defence for Mr Junqueras and Mr Romeva, Andreu Van den Eynde, accuses the Supreme Court of harbouring the determination to “maintain the penalty of absolute disqualification at all costs,” since the sentence for the former vice-president and former minister has been used to decapitate the pro-independence movement. He also denounces that the court is violating basic rights such as representation and political participation.

As for Ms Bassa's counsel, Mariano Bergés also emphasizes that the “contrived interpretation by the Supreme Court” through the “failure to apply” the Amnesty Law prevents this former minister from exercising her rights to political participation and free elections, and also points out the devastating effects that the disqualification has on her, as it prevents her from being able to work in the public administrations.