The table of the Catalan Parliament has given the political finishing touch to Laura Borràs. In a meeting called urgently this Thursday afternoon, it was agreed to withdraw the seat of deputy, a decision that responds to the order issued a month ago by the Central Electoral Board (JEC), following the judicial conviction for corruption that weighs about the also president of Junts per Catalunya. At the end of March, the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) sentenced Borràs to four and a half years in prison and another 13 years of disqualification for chopping up public contracts to benefit a friend. She had refused to give up her seat, and she was listed as the suspended president of the Catalan Chamber, a condition that did not confer authority or functions on her. The decision made this Thursday by the table marks a full stop in the interim situation that was in charge of Parliament.
It will be necessary to decide in a plenary session, convened for June 9, the name of the person who will occupy the presidency of Parliament from now on. Despite the confrontation they are having, Junts, ERC and the CUP agree that the position should remain in the hands of the independence movement. The name of Anna Erra, former mayor of Vic for Junts, has sounded a lot like a possible replacement for Borràs. Also that of Marta Madrenas, who was Carles Puigdemont’s successor at the head of the Girona City Council. For now, the decision of the table shelves a case that has been kicking for months.
The pro-independence majority of the Parliament initially tried to avoid the mandate of the Electoral Board, presenting an appeal before the Supreme Court in which they requested the precautionary suspension of the agreement that the JEC reached on May 3. An unsuccessful attempt was made to maintain Borràs’s status as deputy until the conviction for prevarication is final. Despite this apparent common front in the Catalan chamber, the Borràs case had muddied relations between all the Catalan parties. At the table they have representation ERC, PSC, the CUP and Junts. The first three have decided this Thursday in an extraordinary meeting to certify the dismissal of Borràs.
Until now, Junts had avoided appointing a new deputy to replace its president, while the rest of the groups had repeatedly maintained that Borràs was dedicated to filing down the institution’s reputation at the cost of becoming strong in a position that he could no longer hold. She alleges that her judicial conviction for her prevarication responds to a case of lawfare, an instrumentalization of justice for torture purposes. “I have not been able to have a fair trial and, therefore, I have not been able to have a fair sentence,” Borràs denounced in March, to accuse the Catalan High Court of being “partial”, “politicized” and dedicated solely to “defending the unity of Spain”. Junts tried to strike a balance to manage the matter, preventing his boss’s conviction for prevarication from splashing the campaign for the municipal elections.
In his conviction for prevarication and falsehood, the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) asked the Government to grant him a partial pardon so that he does not enter prison. A proposal of this magnitude is far from common, although the Penal Code provides that the courts that pass sentence may request the measure of grace when, depending on the “bad caused” and the personal circumstances of the convicted person, the penalty is “significantly excessive”.
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