The Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) has sentenced the suspended president of the Parliament, Laura Borràs, to four and a half years in prison and 13 years of absolute disqualification for the crimes of document falsification and prevarication for irregularities committed in front of the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes, between 2013 and 2017. The judges, however, propose that the Government apply a partial pardon to prevent him from entering prison. This is a power that judges have when they consider that the sentence imposed is disproportionate. In addition, the resolution has the dissenting particular vote of magistrate María Jesús Manzano who was in favor of sentencing Borràs only to a penalty of disqualification.
The sentence considers it proven that the now president of Junts divided eighteen contracts when she directed the ILC to award them by hand to a friend, Isaías Herrero, for the maintenance work on the institution’s web portal without having to submit to a public tender. The commission to Herrero for the maintenance of the web portal was carried out “personally and directly by Borràs despite knowing that in doing so he was dispensing with the mandatory administrative contracting procedure that had to be subject to an open procedure with a public tender,” the resolution underlines.
In addition, the judgment describes that Borràs, as a contracting body and in order to avoid the requirements demanded in the contracting modalities “decided to simulate the award of the works already commissioned to Herrero”. “To create an appearance of respect for the principles of publicity and free competition in each of the contracting files, Borràs “gave instructions” to Herrero on how to proceed to invoice his work to the ILC and on how he should make three estimates.
The TSJC ruling also sentences Isaías Herrero to 2 years in prison as a necessary cooperator of the crime of documentary falsification and as the author of a crime of documentary falsification. It also sentences him to one year and ten months of disqualification from holding public office and from being hired by the administration. The defendant reached an agreement with the prosecution before the trial and has seen his sentence significantly reduced. The court applies the mitigation of confession and leaves his sentence to a sentence of non-compliance. The other defendant, Andreu Pujol, is sentenced by the court to one year and two months in prison and a 1-year disqualification for documentary falsification and prevarication.
The Prosecutor’s Office requested a request for a sentence of six years in prison and 21 years of disqualification for Borràs, in addition to a fine of 144,000 euros. On the other hand, the other two defendants, who reached an agreement with the public prosecutor’s office, had their sentences reduced to a maximum of two years in prison. In view of the confession they made, the Prosecutor’s Office decided to apply a mitigation that allows the request to be reduced to a penalty of non-compliance.
In the last session of the trial and exercising the right to the last word, Borràs denounced that the agreement that the two defendants sealed with the Prosecutor’s Office had left him defenseless. I have not made a pact with the Prosecutor’s Office, I have made a pact with the truth, ”he said. The Junts leader reiterated her innocence and criticized the attitude of the ERC and the CUP for having sentenced her before the trial. She affirmed that she has not embezzled – this crime was ruled out – but she denounced that this was “the crude excuse” that they used to remove her from the presidency of Parliament, regretting that she “acted as judges” before the trial.
