SPAIN is under mounting pressure to release a Catalan independence leader after the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that he had an MEP’s immunity five months before he was jailed over the 2017 independence referendum in Catalonia.

Andreu Van den Eynde, who represents former Catalan vice-president Oriol Junqueras, has formally requested his immediate release to take up his seat at the European Parliament.

It followed last week’s ECJ finding that Junqueras’s immunity started when European election results were declared last May and the call by Spanish Supreme Court judge Manuel Marchena for all parties involved to make their opinions known.

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Junqueras was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment for sedition in October.

Van den Eynde said: “In view of the obvious discordance between the opinion expressed by the ECJ and the offer previously made by the [Supreme] court, it is now time to analyse the extent of the immunity which Oriol Junqueras has had since June 13, 2019, and grant full legal effect to this condition.”

The Spanish court refused to release Junqueras last week, saying he had no immunity and had not sworn allegiance to the constitution.

His lawyer said the court has to ask for suspension of his client’s immunity as an MEP if it wanted to keep Junqueras in prison, but had failed to do so despite the Catalan politician already being a fully-fledged MEP: “Mr Junqueras acquired all the rights and immunity of European parliamentarians and his seat cannot continue to be vacant. The restrictions adopted by this court must therefore end.”

Van den Eynde’s latest intervention came as a retired Spanish Supreme Court judge said Junqueras “should be at liberty”.

Jose Antonio Martin Pallin told Catalonia Radio: “The Luxembourg court’s sentence is clear and his continued imprisonment borders on a crime of unlawful detention.

READ MORE: Catalan leader Oriol Junqueras to stay in jail as convicted royal goes home

He said: “[His] release has to be immediate for anyone who can read [the ruling].”

Martin Pallin said there was clarity on the Junqueras ruling, which should also apply to MEPs-elect ex-Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and former minister Toni Comin, who are in exile in Belgium.

“First, the Spanish authorities must ask for immunity to be lifted because if not, no arrest warrant can be applied,” he said. “They can move freely around all the European territory. They could even come here.”

Meanwhile, a professor of constitutional law has said the Spanish court has never respected Junqueras’ immunity, either as an elected member of the Spanish Congress (in April) or as an MEP.

Javier Prez Royo said: “Immunity is a guarantee of the integrity of parliament as the supreme body of the political community, be it the European Union or the state ... Oriol Junqueras should have been released on June 13 and has therefore been illegally detained ever since.