Hazte Oír has taken its challenge to Spain's Supreme Court, accusing seven Constitutional Court magistrates of exceeding their powers in the malversación amnesty case. The complaint targets the court's ruling in the case of former Catalan minister Dolors Bassa.
The complaint was filed with the criminal chamber of Spain's Supreme Court and names Constitutional Court president Cándido Conde-Pumpido along with six other magistrates. Hazte Oír alleges prevaricación and, alternatively, usurpation of judicial powers. Libertad Digital and El Debate have independently reported the filing.
At the centre of the case is the Constitutional Court's amparo ruling involving former Catalan minister Dolors Bassa. The ruling found that the amnesty could apply to malversación and ordered the Supreme Court to issue a new decision. Hazte Oír says the Constitutional Court went beyond checking whether rights had been breached and stepped into a matter reserved for the ordinary criminal courts.
The Dolors Bassa amparo ruling is being treated as a potential precedent for other malversación cases, including proceedings involving Carles Puigdemont.
The decision affects Oriol Junqueras, who remains disqualified because of his malversación conviction. It also concerns Carles Puigdemont and former ministers Toni Comín and Lluís Puig, who are being prosecuted over the same offence after remaining outside Spain. The outcome for each case still depends on later court decisions.
Hazte Oír wants the Supreme Court to add the full Constitutional Court judgment, the separate opinions signed by the five conservative magistrates who opposed it, and the relevant Supreme Court rulings. Investigators would then have the material needed to establish the facts and assess the role of each person named in the complaint.
The association bases its argument on Article 54 of the Organic Law of the Constitutional Court. The provision says that, when deciding an amparo appeal, the court must limit itself to deciding whether the applicant's rights or freedoms were breached and to preserving or restoring those rights. It must not add other considerations about the actions of judicial bodies.
After the Constitutional Court ruling was announced, Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena cancelled the arrest warrant for Carles Puigdemont. The measure changed Puigdemont’s procedural position, although the final consequences for his case remain dependent on further court decisions.
That boundary forms the core of Hazte Oír's complaint. The association says criminal jurisdiction belongs to the courts assigned by law and that the Tribunal Supremo is the highest judicial body in every jurisdiction except constitutional guarantees. In its view, ordering amnesty for malversación was more than a ruling on rights. It interfered with the Supreme Court's handling of the criminal case and told the ordinary criminal courts how to apply the Amnesty Law to a specific offence.
Hazte Oír also says it will keep pursuing the case. Its representatives argue that calling elections would not erase responsibility or end their court actions.
The Constitutional Court took the opposite view of the Supreme Court's approach. Its judgment says that refusing amnesty for the procés embezzlement departed from the spirit and purpose of the Amnesty Law. A report linked to Conde-Pumpido called the Supreme Court's interpretation expansive and at odds with the law's purpose, according to El Confidencial.
The law excludes the diversion of public funds when it involves personal enrichment of a patrimonial nature. The Supreme Court had found that condition met because the independence process was financed with public money rather than the politicians' own funds.
The Constitutional Court rejected that reasoning. It said personal enrichment cannot automatically be equated with the enrichment inherent in every act of malversación. Its published reasoning takes a narrow view of the exclusion: saving one's own money because public funds financed the referendum does not, by itself, necessarily amount to personal enrichment.
According to the Constitutional Court's reasoning, the exclusion was designed to keep private corruption outside the amnesty while allowing a distinction between different forms of embezzlement linked to financing the secessionist process. The court also rejected the Supreme Court's assessment of a risk of Catalan secession. It pointed to the procés judgment's conclusion that the attempt had been a mere "ensoñación" with no realistic chance of success.
The court further referred to the judgment of the Tribunal de Justicia de la Unión Europea, which found that the European Union's financial interests had not been affected.
This is a dispute over more than a procedural detail. It asks who has the final word when constitutional rights, criminal convictions and the interpretation of the Amnesty Law meet. A separate judicial dispute over institutional power was reported in another case, but this complaint is directed at the Constitutional Court itself.
Hazte Oír is seeking an official investigation of the seven judges. Reports also say the association wants interim measures, including a suspension of the Constitutional Court ruling's execution. Available independent reports do not show that the Supreme Court has opened criminal proceedings against the magistrates or ruled on the substance of the complaint.
The filing does not establish that the magistrates committed either alleged offence. It asks the criminal chamber of the Supreme Court to investigate that possibility, while the Constitutional Court judgment remains the basis for the amnesty interpretation it adopted.
The immediate issue is jurisdiction. The Constitutional Court opened the way for amnesty in the malversación cases, and Hazte Oír is asking the Supreme Court to decide whether that ruling crossed the line between constitutional review and criminal adjudication.
