The Court of Accounts declared this Wednesday that the case against the leaders of the processes for alleged diversion of funds for the organization of the illegal referendum of October 1, 2017 and the foreign promotion of the independence plans. In principle, this declaration is the previous step for the corresponding sentence to be issued within approximately one month. In theory, it is possible that the court immediately applies the Amnesty Law – whose debate closes tomorrow, Thursday in Congress – and archives the file. However, the approval of the law also leaves the way open for the Court of Accounts to raise a question of unconstitutionality before the Constitutional Court, in the event that it has doubts about the fit of said law with the text of the Magna Carta itself. , or that it addresses the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the form of a preliminary ruling, before issuing a ruling.
Indicted in this file are the former presidents of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont and Artur Mas, the former vice president, Oriol Junqueras, and several councilors and former senior officials and officials of the Catalan administration, up to a total of 35 accused of involvement in said irregular expenses. The procedures that must be followed, according to the reading and application of the Amnesty Law, are in the hands of the counselor of the Court of Accounts who presided over the trial on December 17. Since then, said advisor, Elena Hernáez – appointed at the proposal of the PP in the last renewal of the supervisory body, in October 2021 – has been carrying out various procedures, such as rejecting the resources of the defenses so that surcharges would not be applied to the amounts claimed. , for the prolongation of the procedure, and finally to receive the conclusions of accusations and defenses.
The prosecutor has demanded that the defendants return 3.1 million euros to the Catalan administration, as being harmed by the diversion of funds. Catalan Civil Society, in turn, has estimated that said accounting liability amounts to five million euros. The defenses have requested the dismissal of the file, alleging the lack of accounting responsibility and the violation of fundamental rights throughout the entire audit procedure of the Court of Auditors.
The amounts finally demanded by the accusations are much lower than those handled at the beginning of the investigation of the file, which reached tens of millions of euros, when accounting for practically all of the trips abroad made by the leaders of the process, considering that had been carried out to promote the plans of the independence forces internationally. The Generalitat refused to take action against the accused, as it did not consider itself harmed by their actions, and requested that it could guarantee them through a bond deposited by the Catalan Institute of Finance.
This endorsement was accepted by the Court of Auditors after a long controversy in which this action was initially prevented because it was considered a subterfuge to prevent the defendants from facing their responsibility for the diversion of funds. After its renewal in October 2021, through an agreement between the PSOE and the PP still chaired by Pablo Casado, the supervisory body accepted these guarantees, with which all embargoes that had been previously agreed in relation to assets and properties could be lifted. real estate agencies of the leaders of the process.
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