The Court of Accounts activates the last procedures to issue a ruling on the misappropriation of the 'procés'

The instructor of the Court of Accounts who must issue a ruling on the alleged misappropriation of public funds in the processes Catalan independence movement, Elena Hernáez, opened this Thursday the process of conclusions of this procedure. Hernáez gives ten days to the Prosecutor's Office and the Catalan Civil Society (SCC), as plaintiffs, to send him her conclusions; She will then give a similar period to the defenses, and the next step will be to issue a sentence. The counselor's decision comes four and a half months after the trial on the alleged accounting responsibility of the former presidents of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont and Artur Mas, the former vice president Oriol Junqueras and several former counselors, senior officials and officials of the Catalan administration. , up to a total of 35 investigated.

The Court of Auditors is the highest supervisory body for the accounts and economic management of the administrations. Its members are elected by the Cortes and the sanctions it imposes are always economic, since its jurisdiction is accounting. In the cause of processes, the Prosecutor's Office demands that the defendants restore 3.4 million euros for the diversion of public funds for the organization of the illegal 1-O referendum and for the foreign promotion of the independence plan through the Public Diplomacy Council of Catalonia (Diplocat). . The Catalan Civil Society association – which exercises the popular accusation – demands a fine of 5.3 million. The State Attorney withdrew from the procedure in January 2022.

The Supreme Court already recognized the crime of embezzlement in its ruling on the processes in criminal proceedings, which was issued in October 2019, but determining the exact amount diverted corresponds to the Court of Auditors. In any case, this is one of the causes that will foreseeably be amnestied when the amnesty law agreed by the PSOE with ERC and Junts in exchange for the support of both pro-independence parties for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez comes into force.

In the order issued this Thursday, Counselor Hernáez declares the final process of conclusions open after rejecting, on January 10, the last appeal of the defenses, which asked to suspend the entire procedure due to the imminence of the amnesty. Approximately within a month, Hernáez – appointed at the proposal of the PP – will be able to have the writings of all the parties on the table and issue a ruling.

Sources from the body emphasize the importance of timing: if when the amnesty law comes into force the ruling has not yet been issued, Counselor Hernáez will have it in her power to raise her doubts of application—if she has any—to the Constitutional Court or the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). But if at that time the sentence has already been handed down and has been appealed, the file would already be in the possession of the Prosecution Chamber of the Court of Auditors, made up of two councilors appointed at the proposal of the PSOE and one presented by the PP. The sources consulted in the Court of Auditors consider it unlikely that said Chamber harbors doubts about the application of the amnesty law, and therefore would not raise any issue to the Constitutional Court or to European justice.

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