The judicial case of Laura Borràs for the alleged division of contracts when she directed the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes (ILC), which has entered its final phase and could be judged before the end of the year, threatens to cause a new clash between the two members of the Government of the Generalitat.
Junts per Catalunya expects and demands a “common front” of the independence movement to “defend” the seat of the president of the Parliament and the “sovereignty” of the institution, while the Republicans are inclined to apply the regulation to the letter and that when an oral trial is opened, she loses her status as a deputy by virtue of article 25.4 of the regulations, which is related to causes related to corruption.
The JxCat spokesman, Josep Rius, argued this Monday that it is a case of “manual lawfare” and “political persecution and repression”, for which he has invited the ERC and the CUP to “defend the presumption of innocence” of the leader of his party, but the Republicans reply that “it is not a case of corruption, but of malpractice”. His deputy general secretary and spokesperson, Marta Vilalta, has pointed out that Borràs “must act according to the prestige of the Catalan Chamber, preserving his honorability”.
The article that can strip Borràs of his seat was approved in 2017 with the votes of the pro-independence majority in the last reform of the House regulations, which was made in August, just before the 1-O referendum. The anti-capitalists asked to include an article on the causes of corruption and Junts pel Sí, the coalition of ERC and PDECat, accepted it.
But ERC is not in favor of forming part of this common front. Its spokesperson, Marta Vilalta, has been very careful not to ask for the resignation of the president, but she has advocated applying the literality of article 25.4 of the law of the Parliament’s regulations, which stipulates that “the suspension” of the immediate parliamentary rights and duties. With this, she would open up the possibility of a reinstatement of her position in case she is acquitted of the legal case.
For the republicans, Borràs has to “preserve the institutions and not use them”. Vilalta has clarified that ERC “does not tell” the also leader of Junts “what she has to do, but rather values ??that she is not only Mrs. Borràs, who is also the president of the Parliament”. “And as such, it has to ensure the integrity of the institutions”, explained Esquerra’s deputy general secretary, who considered that “it would be a serious mistake for the Parliament to embark on a path of discredit with a judicial battle”.
Vilalta has assured that in any case ERC defends the presumption of innocence, but uses the Parliament’s regulations, “which is very clear in its article 25”. Thus, the formation led by Oriol Junqueras cannot “drag the pro-independence project and the institution and stain them with possible corruption.” The ERC leader has made it clear that the case of Borràs “is not one of repression”, but of alleged malpractice when he directed the ILC. “At ERC we have always had self-demand in terms of suspicions, and we demand that of everyone,” she has sentenced.
The Borràs affair has also marked the press conferences of the main opposition parties. Especially incisive were from En Comú Podem, where the spokesperson Joan Mena directly requested the resignation of the president of the Parliament in application of the regulations of the Chamber. The commons maintain a struggle with Junts on this matter and, in fact, the secretary general of the formation, Jordi Turull, defended Borràs this weekend and accused those of Jéssica Albiach of taking advantage of the “sewers” of the State.
This Monday, Mena responded by urging the post-convergence leader to resign the president of Parliament and avoid “these weeks of spectacle”.
The spokesman for the commons has argued that the debate should not settle on the presumption of innocence, which he has taken for granted, but on the application of the Parliament’s regulations that precisely Junts promoted five years ago and that puts between a rock and a hard place Borras. At the same time, Mena has called on the President of the Govern, Pere Aragonès, to take sides in this controversy to “clarify whether he joins Borràs’s request for resignation”, since he considers that citizens have the right to know the position of the head of the Catalan executive before a case that affects the institutions.
From the PSC they are more cautious and avoid requesting the resignation directly. It maintains a triple argument based on respect for the presumption of innocence, that Borràs should be the one to make the appropriate decisions, and they opt for thinking that the president of the Chamber should leave office when they ask her to make decisions “thinking about the prestige of the institution” that he directs at the moment.
