The president of the Junts guarantees commission, Magda Oranich, believes that Laura Borràs would have to resign as president of the Parliament after the conviction for the crimes of prevarication and document falsification. “If she were me, she would resign”, Oranich stated this morning, that she is the one who will have to decide the future of Borràs at the head of the party in the event that she finally has a final sentence. However, Borràs has already ruled out her resignation.

In statements to La 2 and Ràdio 4, Oranich has questioned whether it is a case of lawfare, as denounced by Borràs, which is the concept included in the party regulations and which would exempt her from being expelled from the formation. In this way, he has contradicted the general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, who yesterday stated that he was “manual”.

The guarantees commission is the one that will have to decide whether or not Borràs will continue in Junts, although it could also transfer responsibility to the executive. Magda Oranich, in charge of the body, already had a public confrontation with the party leader a few months ago, when the commission stated, in a report, that a TV3 journalist had felt intimidated by the deputy Francesc de Dalmases moments after a interview in the FAQS program. Oranich’s verdict was decisive for Dalmases, Borràs’ right-hand man, to end up resigning as vice president of the party. Borràs did not like the content of the report, and so she expressed it publicly. Oranich, for her part, denounced pressure from the top leader.

The role of the lawyer could, therefore, once again be decisive in a few months. Asked if the case of the suspended president of Parliament is lawfare, Oranich has questioned whether this is the case, although she has specified that it is “possible” that there has been some “persecution” as she is a public figure. She has highlighted, in any case, that Borràs has been convicted of common and non-political crimes. The Junts code of ethics, approved at the congress last summer, includes the term lawfare as an assumption that exempts militants convicted of corruption from being expelled.

Oranich has clarified that she is not in favor of expelling Borràs from Junts and, although she has not closed the door on her removal from her current position, she has asked to wait for the sentence to be final. The lawyer has placed the management’s decision after the municipal elections on May 28. In parallel, the party leader has announced today in RAC1 that she will appeal the sentence before the Supreme Court.

In relation to the interim situation of Parliament, the president of the guarantees commission believes that Borràs would have to resign for “dignity” after the conviction. “Decisions must be made to clarify that certain corruptions cannot be admitted in Catalan politics,” said Oranich, who was also a deputy in the 1990s for Initiative. This is an issue that must be resolved “quickly”, she has stated, since it is the “most important political problem” that will be on the table in the short term.