No sooner said than done. Spain's Central Electoral Commission (JEC) has not only refused to suspend the withdrawal of the seat of Catalan MP Pau Juvillà (CUP), but also, as indicated in the resolution it published yesterday, has already issued the MP credentials for the candidate appearing after Juvillà on the CUP candidature list for the Lleida constituency in last year's elections. All this reached the Catalan Parliament this morning, sent as an official burofax communication to the speaker of the Chamber, Laura Borràs, who has a period of five working days to indicate "the measures she has taken" to withdraw the MP's seat. "Failure to comply with these resolutions may lead to the legal consequences provided for in current legislation," Borràs was warned.
On January 20th, when the electoral body announced that it was withdrawing the seat of the deputy Juvillà, it also announced that it had agreed to "issue the credentials for the next candidate on the list" of the pro-independence CUP party. However, it went any further than that announcement. Yesterday's resolution, on the other hand, announced the issuing of the credentials and stated that the procedure had to be carried out the same day. Accordingly, the credential of the new deputy reached Parliament this morning in the burofax. Juvillà ran in the 14th February elections last year as head of the CUP list for Lleida, and the number two candidate is Nogay Ndiaye.
Seat removed
These expeditious movements of the JEC are completely different to how the body behaved in the 2020 case of the withdrawal of the seat of Quim Torra, when the then-Catalan president was also banned from office for a very similar offence of disobedience to the JEC itself: the refusal to remove symbolic yellow ribbons and banners from a public building. Two years ago, the JEC sent a letter asking speaker Roger Torrent to proceed with the removal of Torra's seat and requesting that he also send the body all the documentation certifying that that had been done. In the case of Juvillà, the electoral commission itself withdrew the credentials of the deputy and has now moved to materialize his substitute, issuing the new credentials of the person who, it asserts, must now occupy the seat.
Unlike Torrent, then, the JEC has not allowed Borràs to decide whether or not to withdraw his seat, because he has already been removed. What the speaker of parliament will have to decide is whether to assume being disobedient of the JEC decision, which could lead to the imposition of other charges against her such as collaboration in the usurpation of functions and misuse of public funds, as it could also involve using the public purse to pay the salary of an MP whose seat has been withdrawn. All this complicates the situation for speaker Laura Borràs, who came to the chamber with a court case of her pending, with regard to contractual irregularities in the Institute of Catalan Letters which she formerly headed, and in these 11 months in the job, has added eight more cases, following the appeal of the PSC to the Constitutional Court, for the acceptance of the delegation of exiled MP Lluís Puig's vote, in addition to various complaints from Ciudadanos (Cs) and Vox.
Juvilla "contaminates democratic functioning"
In fact, the burofax that the JEC sent to the parliamentary speaker's office also includes the submission presented by Cs to the electoral body, and gives five days to Borràs to give explanations on the facts in relation to the alleged non-compliance with the electoral board's resolution, and "in particular to indicate the measures taken by this institution to implement the agreement" to withdraw Juvillà's seat. Cs' letter names Borràs directly and refers to the "multiple public demonstrations in which she agrees to continue to prevent the execution of the agreement and the effectivity of the law, collaborating in the usurpation of functions initiated by the convicted Juvillà" .
The Cs appeal also names the secretary general of parliament, Esther Andreu, along with the members of the Bureau who refused to comply with the decision of the JEC, as responsible for not initiating the procedure to replace the CUP deputy. It also warns that in the event that Juvillà continues to participate in the deliberations of the house, given that his credentials as a deputy have been formally withdrawn, he will "contaminate the democratic functioning" of Parliament. The Cs letter to the JEC is accompanied by documentation, including photographs of Borràs with Juvillà and transcripts of plenary sessions.
The speaker of parliament has five working days to respond, counting from Thursday 27th. Beyond the matter of how and when the Catalan chamber decides to respond, as the Ciudadanos text warns, from now, on the simple fact of Juvillà's participation in a meeting of the Bureau or any parliamentary activity, or the payment of his MP's salary, once the JEC has cancelled his accreditation as a deputy and issued a new one, will launch a new legal front and new accusations. And not just for disobedience.