In an intervention of just 10 minutes, the former president of the Parliament, Roger Torrent, has admitted before the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) that the services of the Chamber communicated their “doubts” about whether the resolutions processed in 2019 contravened the Constitutional Court (TC), but they did not ask him to paralyze them. The current Minister of Business of the Catalan Government is being tried, together with three former members of the Parliamentary Board, for alleged disobedience to the TC by having processed two resolutions in response to the sentence of the process: one in favor of self-determination and another in disapproval of the monarchy.
Torrent has argued that his action did not disobey the Constitutional because the High Court “cannot prohibit a parliamentary debate understood as an expression of public interest” and the resolutions had a character of “political expression” on which the Board could not “exercise censorship” . Both Torrent and the other two defendants who testified this Friday, Adriana Delgado and Eusebi Campdepadrós, have only responded to questions from their defense attorneys, alleging parliamentary inviolability.
Josep Costa, former vice president of Parliament, has not declared this Friday, the last session of the trial. He left the TSJC room yesterday arguing that it was “a drill”, after the court rejected his request to suspend the hearing due to the court’s choice. Costa has defended his actions this morning: “I haven’t done anything illegal, it would be very strange if it had any consequence other than that my reasons are heard”. He assures that his goal is to win the case at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The Civil and Criminal Chamber of the TSJC that planned to judge him has sent him a letter allowing him to appear this Friday “to make use of his right of defense”, but he has not appeared.
The Prosecutor’s Office maintains the penalties requested for the accused: 20 months of disqualification and a 30,000-euro fine. In the case of Adriana Delgado, it is a lesser sentence because she only participated in the processing of one of the resolutions (16 months and a fine of 24,000 euros).
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