The legal team representing Oriol Junqueras and eight other former senior Catalan government officials has appealed a procedural decision by Spain’s Tribunal de Cuentas, arguing that it conflicts with the Court of Justice of the European Union’s (CJEU) interpretation of Spain’s amnesty law. The EU court issued its ruling on 16 July 2026 in a case the Tribunal de Cuentas referred to Luxembourg.
The dispute concerns the Spanish court’s decision to give the parties ten days to submit arguments on whether the amnesty applies to alleged public spending on international activity supporting Catalan independence. The underlying accounting-liability proceedings relate to spending connected with the 1 October referendum and the Catalan government’s overseas activity. The defence says the CJEU ruling makes further submissions unnecessary.
Lawyers for Junqueras, Raül Romeva and Dolors Bassa, along with six other former officials, say the Tribunal de Cuentas is failing to give effect to the EU court’s judgment. Their appeal asks the Spanish court to annul its order for further submissions and issue a new resolution applying the amnesty. The CJEU considered whether EU financial rules barred Spain from applying the law to the conduct under review. It found that the conduct examined in this accounting case did not affect the EU’s financial interests in a way that triggered the relevant restrictions.
The case involves approximately 40 people and concerns potential accounting liability, a distinct legal track from criminal proceedings. The broader group includes former Catalan presidents Artur Mas and Carles Puigdemont. The appellants contend that the Tribunal de Cuentas should have applied the CJEU’s interpretation without reopening debate over the amnesty. The public prosecutor had also objected to further submissions on the issue, particularly the question of possible effects on the EU budget.
The appeal’s arguments reflect the defendants’ position; the CJEU ruling did not automatically dispose of every case connected with the Catalan independence process. National courts must apply the EU court’s interpretation to the facts and legal questions in each proceeding. The July judgment addressed two of four related references before the CJEU, including the Tribunal de Cuentas case and a separate reference concerning the “Operation Judas” terrorism proceedings.
In a later development, the Tribunal de Cuentas applied the amnesty to Puigdemont and 34 other defendants in the accounting case, dismissing proceedings for those covered by its decision. That resolution concerned 35 people, a narrower group than the approximately 40 associated with the broader proceedings. Separately, Spain’s National Court closed the case against 12 members of the Committees for the Defence of the Republic after concluding that the conduct attributed to them did not fall within the amnesty’s exclusion for serious, intentional violations of human rights. Those outcomes involved separate proceedings and case-specific assessments.
Spain’s Supreme Court separately applied the amnesty to Junqueras, Bassa and Romeva in connection with the criminal consequences of the procés judgment. That ruling concerned criminal responsibility, not the Tribunal de Cuentas’ accounting case. Puigdemont’s lawyers had separately complained to the European Commission, characterizing the Tribunal de Cuentas’ actions as an attempt to obstruct implementation of the amnesty.
The Tribunal de Cuentas oversees the financial conduct of public officials and institutions and can determine accounting liability for alleged misuse of public funds. The dispute shows how Spanish courts are applying the amnesty law and the CJEU’s interpretation across distinct proceedings, with each court responsible for deciding the consequences in its case.
