Lluís Puig has returned to Catalonia after nine years abroad, following the annulment of arrest warrants by Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena. He is due at Thursday’s Parliament sitting to speak in the chamber and remove the yellow ribbon from his seat.
On Thursday, Lluís Puig is due to address the Catalan parliament and remove the yellow ribbon from his seat. Josep Rull, the institution’s president, said members of the Mesa would receive the former culture minister at the entrance. Rull welcomed Puig’s return with the message, “We are waiting for you at home.”
Puig returned to Catalonia on Wednesday, 21 October, after almost nine years abroad. He is a sitting Junts MP who carried out representative duties remotely during the current legislature. Before heading to the Parliament, he planned to attend Els Cants per la Llibertat in Terrassa, his city. The nightly singing event has taken place there every evening since autumn 2017. Puig is the first of the three Catalan procés figures still abroad to return to Spain.
Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena confirmed on 19 October the lifting of national arrest warrants against Puig and Toni Comín. The ruling also covered former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont. Llarena rejected an appeal by Vox against his 6 October ruling, which the party had called premature. The judge relied on the Constitutional Court’s doctrine on applying the amnesty law to the alleged misuse of public funds connected with the 2017 independence referendum.
The decision removes warrants and any prison orders based exclusively on them. The three men can now enter Spain without risk of arrest under those national orders. It does not, however, close the criminal proceedings or amount to a final ruling extinguishing their liability. As EFE reported, the case still includes unresolved appeals, and a competent court must issue a separate decision on the final application of the amnesty.
Rull said he would meet Puig at the Parliament entrance. He also said the reception could share elements with the return of Carles Puigdemont. A separate report on Vox’s position on Sánchez covers another strand of Spain’s political debate.
