The defense of Laura Borràs, in charge of the criminal Gonzalo Boye, will challenge the president of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC), Jesús María Barrientos, who has been appointed to preside over the room that will prosecute the suspended president of Parliament for the alleged fractioning of contracts when he directed the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes (ILC) and he will also be the rapporteur of the sentence, who writes it.
The magistrate has already been previously challenged in other cases involving pro-independence leaders. It so happens that in the case of former president Quim Torra, who was sentenced to disqualification, the challenge was denied, but, on the other hand, in the trial of the Parliamentary Committee of the previous legislature, it was accepted when raised by the former first vice-president of the Chamber, Josep Costa.
Sources close to Borràs also point out what happened yesterday as a relevant fact. The Supreme Court ordered a repeat trial of the Parliamentary Board of the 1-O legislature for lack of impartiality of two magistrates of the TSJC.
The Criminal Chamber of the high court indicates that Barrientos and magistrate Carlos Ramos, investigator of the Borràs case whose challenge at that procedural moment was denied, anticipated in an order the meaning of the future sentence that sentenced some members of the court to 20 months of disqualification. governing body of the Catalan Chamber between 2015 and 2017 –Lluís Corominas, Anna Simó, Ramona Barrufet and Lluís Guinó–, for their contest in the referendum on October 1 in everything related to Parliament.
In addition to Barrientos, Fernando Lacaba, a magistrate from the conservative Professional Association of the Magistracy, and magistrate María Jesús Manzano, from the appeals section, will be in court. Barrientos presides over the trials in the TSJC and has already headed the court that sentenced Artur Mas, Irene Rigau and Joana Ortega for the consultation.
The TSJC ruled out in July that the also president of Junts per Catalunya be tried by a people’s court, since the Prosecutor’s Office did not finally accuse her of the crimes of embezzlement and fraud. The Prosecutor’s Office asks Borràs for a sentence of six years in prison and 21 years of disqualification for the crimes of prevarication and documentary falsification.
