Sanchez i Picanyol and Others v. Spain, Nos. 25608/20, 27250/20 and 46481/20, ECtHR (Fifth Section), 6 November 2025

Political rights of three Catalan elected officials not infringed during their pre-trial detention.

Art. 3, Prot. 1 ECHR

1. The case concerned three leading figures in the Catalan independence movement: Jordi Sànchez i Picanyol, Jordi Turull i Negre and Oriol Junqueras Vies. They appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that the pre-trial detention ordered against them, in connection with the events surrounding the 2017 Catalan independence referendum, unlawfully restricted their political rights. In September and October 2017, the Catalan authorities went ahead with the independence referendum despite its suspension and subsequent declaration of unconstitutionality by the Spanish authorities. Following the demonstrations on 20 and 21 September 2017 and the holding of the referendum on 1 October, the applicants were placed in pre-trial detention on the grounds of flight risk and the risk of reoffending. Although in custody, they stood as candidates in the regional elections of December 2017 and were elected, but were not granted permission to attend certain parliamentary sessions and were subsequently suspended from public office.

2. The European Court of Human Rights ruled out a violation of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the ECHR, finding that the Spanish authorities had struck an appropriate balance between the applicants’ political rights and the protection of the constitutional order. Pre-trial detention and the rejection of requests for provisional release were based on concrete precautionary requirements and did not undermine the essence of the right to stand for election. As regards Article 5 of the ECHR, the Court held that pre-trial detention was supported by reasonable suspicion of an offence and by relevant and sufficient grounds, thereby ruling out its arbitrary nature. Finally, a violation of Article 18 of the ECHR was also ruled out, as the applicants had not demonstrated that the measures taken pursued hidden political aims or were intended to prevent their participation in democratic life.