THE president of Spain’s Supreme Court has written to the European Parliament President David Sassoli urging him to suspend the immunity of St Andrews Professor Clara Ponsati as a MEP.

Carlos Lesmes’ request yesterday came after judge Pablo Llarena asked the UK to continue the extradition process against the former Catalan education minister. He said her immunity should be revoked after the European Court of Justice stripped jailed Catalan independence leader Oriol Junqueras of his MEP’s status.

Lesmes said Ponsati only stood for election in Europe to avoid being tried for her part in the 2017 Catalan independence referendum. She was third on Spain’s list when it was awarded five extra seats following the UK’s exit from the EU and he said her elevation last week only came after she had been “prosecuted and had previously fled Spanish justice”.

According to Lesmes, the status of a MEP “‘cannot be transformed into an abusive privilege used to improperly curtail the exercise of jurisdictional function”.

However, Ponsati’s Scottish lawyer Aamer Anwar has already lodged papers with the Spanish court reminding it that his client still has immunity in Scotland, where she is fighting extradition to Spain.

READ MORE: Catalonia: Spain defies top EU top court on Junqueras's imprisonment

Anwar said: "Spain has repeatedly chosen to disobey a ruling by the highest court in Europe.

"It failed to release Junqueras and has abused the system of European Arrest Warrants. The fact that it is now desperate to remove Clara’s legal immunity as an MEP comes as little surprise - Clara is no fugitive from justice but a victim of Spanish injustice - Spain’s Supreme Court stands accused of pursuing politically motivated persecutions and now once again it fails to observe European Law which gives Clara legal immunity.

"Clara will fight Spain over extradition from Scotland but also in the European Court of Justice when the time comes.

"She remains defiant and determined to be a voice for the freedom of Catalonia in the EU Parliament, taking her message across Europe as long as she can, until the day she can return home to her people and country."

The request from Lesmes came after it emerged that Spain’s Constitutional Court (TC) adopted a strategy of allowing appeals from the Catalan political prisoners but failing to act on them to avoid the trial becoming an international issue at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg.

Details were leaked by a TC source to the Europa Press agency, but there was no formal statement or admission from the court.

Around 50 appeals were lodged but none was rejected as inadmissible, which mean defence lawyers could not submit cases of alleged rights violations to the ECHR before the indy case was finished.

As part of the plan, the TC created a working group of around a dozen lawyers under the direction of Judge Candido Conde-Pumpido, to handle the appeals before the trial – a move that led to some of the prisoners going on hunger strike.