The Court of Accounts has once again rejected the defendants’ claim to suspend the accounting procedure for the external action of the Generalitat and for the 1-O expenses after the presentation of a proposed amnesty law.
The counselor already refused to suspend the trial, held on November 17, four days after the PSOE registered in the Congress of Deputies the bill to amnesty all those people with open criminal, administrative or accounting proceedings linked to the processes.
At that time, the supervisory court opposed the suspension because it was a proposal. After the trial ended, the former vice president of the Generalitat Oriol Junqueras, the former minister Raúl Romeva and seven other co-defendants once again requested the suspension to prevent the sentence from being handed down pending the application of the law.
However, with the support of the Prosecutor’s Office, the counselor has rejected it again because the law has not yet been approved. Just yesterday Congress rejected the entire amendments presented by PP and Vox and now the partial amendments have to be debated and voted on. Afterwards, it will have to go through the Senate process and it is estimated that the law will not be definitively approved and published in the Official State Gazette until April.
On the 17th, the Court of Accounts (TCu) held the accounting trial for the money allegedly used improperly for the organization of the referendum on October 1, 2017 and for the external action carried out by the Generalitat to promote the independence process. Thirty-five defendants are in the dock, including former presidents Carles Puigdemont and Artur Mas, and 3.4 million euros that they are asked to return.
The defenses have already requested the suspension of the procedure once the amnesty law is already presented. Both the Prosecutor’s Office and the popular action rejected it on the basis that the law has not even been approved.
In theory, this matter is destined for closure because it is one of the assumptions included in the amnesty law proposal registered by the PSOE and supported by the majority of its partners for its approval. However, from the supervisory body, as would occur in any other court, as long as the text is not approved and promulgated it does not have any legal validity and therefore the process must continue until this occurs.
At the hearing, the statements of three witnesses were heard, among them the General Comptroller of the State María Luisa Lamela. She assured that from the IGAE there was no review of the expenses to pay the creditors of the Generalitat since September 2017 but rather they accepted what the Catalan intervention referred to as good.