COURTS in Spain have agreed deposed Catalunya president Carles Puigdemont can stand for the European Parliamentary elections on May 26 if he wishes, as can his former ministers, Antoni Comín and Clara Ponsatí.
The fact that they are considered 'fugitives' is no barrier to their running for the elections, judges in several courts in Madrid have found.
All three filed appeals against the Central Electoral Board (JEC) after this excluded their candidatures as part of their recently formed party Lliures per Europa (Junts).
Puigdemont is still living in Waterloo, Belgium, as is Comín, and Dr Ponsatí is back in Edinburgh teaching economics at St Andrew's University, her old job before becoming regional minister for education in Catalunya.
Courts in Scotland and Belgium have refused to extradite them on the grounds that the offences they are charged with – sedition and rebellion – do not exist in the laws of either territory.
They were up against appeals by the right-wing PP and centre-right Ciudadanos, who applied for them to be banned from running for election, but the courts all found that their right to 'passive suffrage' is a fundamental one protected by the Spanish Constitution, unless thewy are in a condition in which they have been legally banned – and 'being found in rebellion' is not one of these conditions.
Even the fact they are living outside Spain does not affect their right to stand for European elections as candidates for their country, since they are all registered on the census in towns there.
Unless their local councils decide to remove their names from the municipal headcount register, or padrón, they are not barred from running, the judges in three different courts say.
The State prosecution had recommended their rights to stand for election be upheld, finding the JEC's decision in breach of the Constitution.
Puigdemont has announced possible legal action against the JEC for its having attempted to strip him of this right.
The Catalunya Left Republicans (ERC) have championed the courts' decisions – even though it will be running against Puigdemont - but the PP intends to appeal them to the Constitutional Court.
