The eternal return of Puigdemont

At times, and this is not the first time, rather than a full democracy, Spain seems to operate like a regime with convenient separations of powers. Therefore, what we are suffering here is not imported lawfare , but its traditional, institutionalized, and unapologetic version. When the Supreme Court (SC) gets creative, no legislator or government can resist them. Or so their honors hope.

The case of Carles Puigdemont is today the most eloquent symbol of a phenomenon that is increasingly difficult to conceal: that of a judiciary that projects itself in rebellion and that is increasingly difficult to defend as acting as a guarantor of the law, because it is clearly perceived as a political corrector of legitimate laws.

Arresting the president would be a triumph of the judiciary as an autonomous political actor.

The Supreme Court's approval of the Amnesty Law, a direct expression of popular sovereignty, was viewed from the outset as a provocation to resist, not as a law to be enforced. Months go by, and they continue to make no secret of their intentions: they even let us know that they will appeal to the Court of Justice of the EU if the Constitutional Court approves the law.

Since when has a court at this level threatened to challenge the body that interprets the Constitution? Since the Supreme Court ceased to assume its judicial function and instead assumed, more than symbolically, the role of a third legislative chamber.

The issue is not new. In 2018, Ignacio Cosidó, then PP spokesperson in the Senate, wrote in an internal WhatsApp chat that the agreement to renew the CGPJ would allow his party to "control the Second Chamber from behind," the very one that tried the pro-independence leaders. It wasn't just about installing Marchena. It was, literally, an attempt to use the institutions to ensure political bias in the application of the law. The leaked confession didn't trigger any purges. Rather, it confirmed what many suspected: that in Spain, some courts don't judge, they militate.

And so, Puigdemont's ordeal to return to Catalonia has also become a matter of the rule of law. Because if, after the amnesty comes into effect (and its constitutional endorsement), the Supreme Court arrests the former president, consistent with his previous actions, we will no longer be talking about a legal conflict, but rather an institutional breakdown. It would be the triumph of the judiciary as an autonomous political actor, which selects which laws to obey and which decisions to challenge.

This punitive use of law, transformed into exemplary punishment, evokes the myth of Prometheus: the Titan chained for daring to defy the order of the gods by bringing fire to mankind. Like Prometheus, Puigdemont embodies, for some, not just disobedience, but a heresy that must be punished in eternal recurrence, although this time the chains are legal.

Today, the Supreme Court doesn't uphold the rule of law: it interprets it according to its political morality. And if that's not a threat to democracy, what is?