The Catalan Parliament's procedural body, the Bureau, has decided to defend the seat as an MP of Laura Borràs and has agreed to present an argument to the Central Electoral Commisison (JEC) against the withdrawal of the credentials of the suspended speaker of the chamber after her conviction in the contractual irregularities case dating from when she headed the Institute of Catalan Letters. With the backing of the three pro-independence parties - ERC, Junts and the CUP - and the vote against of the Socialists (PSC), the Bureau will respond in this way to the resolution made by the JEC in April 13th, granting 10 days to the current acting speaker and head of the Bureau, Alba Vergés, to clarify what actions would be taken over the seat of Borràs, who is also president of the Junts party.
In this 10-day period, which expires on April 28th, the JEC also opened the door to appeals from both the Parliament and the speaker herself, Laura Borràs. In fact, the defence of the seat until the sentence is final is a move that the chamber already made in the cases of former president Quim Torra and former third Bureau secretary, Pau Juvillà. The agreement adopted by the Bureau this Tuesday urges the legal services of the chamber to prepare a text along these lines, which will pivot on two axes: the defence of parliamentary sovereignty and the rules of the chamber itself, which foresees that a deputy will not have their seat withdrawn until a sentence is final.
The pro-independence parties consider that an administrative body such as the Central Electoral Commission should not be able to "interfere" or "alter" the composition of the Catalan chamber. In this regard, they point out that "it is the citizens" who elect the MPs and maintain that "the sovereignty" of the country's second-most senior institution must be defended, as already argued to the JEC in both the Torra and Juvillà cases. The other argument that this report will include is the protection in article 24 of the regulations of the Parliament, which in its Section E details that the MPs lose their status "when sentenced to a penalty of disqualification from office imposed by a final judicial sentence". The High Court of Catalonia sentenced Borràs to four and a half years in prison and a 13-year ban from office. Her defence will present an appeal, and the Supreme Court will have to rule on it.
The PSC opposes this stand
During the Bureau meeting on the Electoral Commission's questions and the debate on the presenting an appeal, the Catalan Socialists (PSC) opposed the position of the three pro-independence parties because they consider that there are already two Supreme Court judgments showing that the administrative body is able to strip the seat of a convicted MP who does not yet have a final sentence, as happened with both Quim Torra and Pau Juvillà. Thus, they assert that there is already sufficient jurisprudence ratifying the JEC's agreements and they believe that this step is no longer necessary because "we all know where it leads", indicated the PSC spokesperson, Alicia Romero, in a media conference. In the PSC's opinion, what is needed is to "act with maximum speed" so that there is a new speaker in Parliament and an end to the interim situation. If the JEC dismisses the appeals made by April 28th and orders Parliament to withdraw the seat from the suspended speaker, the chamber would predictably have 10 working days to do so, so the debate on the speakership would then take place in the immediate lead-up to the 2023 municipal elections on May 28th.