Catalan separatist leader Oriol Junqueras | Pau Barrena/AFP via Getty Images EU court says jailed Catalan separatist can’t temporarily serve as MEP EU General Court rejects Oriol Junqueras’ latest attempt to claim seat since last year’s election.

An EU court rejected jailed Catalan separatist leader Oriol Junqueras’ request to temporarily be released to serve as an MEP while awaiting a final decision in his case.

The EU’s General Court said in a statement Tuesday that Junqueras’ request for temporary measures was inadmissible, but that it would later decide on the substance of the case — his latest attempt to claim his MEP seat since being elected last May.

After the European election, Junqueras was blocked by Spanish authorities from taking his seat because he was at the time being held in pretrial detention for his role in a failed push for Catalan independence in 2017. He was later convicted and sentenced to 13 years in prison in October on charges of sedition and misuse of public funds.

The former regional vice president challenged his imprisonment before the Court of Justice of the European Union, which issued a ruling in December arguing MEPs should be granted immunity upon election. That ruling did not, however, call for Spain to release him.

Spain’s own Supreme Court then determined that Junqueras did not have immunity and would therefore not allow him to become an MEP. The European Parliament declared his seat vacant in January after the Spanish ruling.

Junqueras challenged the Parliament’s decision before the General Court and called for interim measures to allow him to serve as an MEP until a final decision on the case is made.

But the court rejected these interim measures, citing the different competencies of EU bodies under the bloc’s treaties, but said this decision would not prejudice its final ruling.

“Parliament … had no power to review the regularity of the national procedure that led to the withdrawal of his mandate and therefore to his seat becoming vacant,” the court said.