The president of the Parliament, Laura Borràs, checks her phone this Wednesday, during the constitution assembly of the National Parliamentary Association Escort Catalonia (Anpec). Quique Garcia (EFE)
The pressure on Laura Borràs is redoubled and uncertainty about her continuity as president of the Parliament of Catalonia increases.
The pro-independence leader is one step away from sitting on the bench for various corruption offenses related to her time at the head of the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes (ILC).
The judicial siege tightens and her political position is called into question, just when she has just inaugurated the presidency of Junts per Catalunya, replacing Carles Puigdemont.
The Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) has prosecuted Borràs for embezzlement, prevarication, fraud and falsehood, in an order very similar to the one already issued last March.
A car that was used by the defenses.
In these months, one of the four investigated —the ILC official Roger E.— has declared and has provided the court with audio files and audit reports that put the leader of Junts per Catalunya even more on the ropes.
Borràs sees how that March scenario is confirmed, with one foot in the trial and pending the accusation of the Prosecutor's Office.
The new resolution was made public this Wednesday, when the plenary session of the Parliament ended.
From the most prominent place at the table, the president continued to administer the speaking turns and direct the vote on the decree law worked in haste by the Government to avoid the court ruling that requires 25% of classes to be taught in Spanish in schools Catalans.
In Comú Podem, as was already planned, she provided the necessary support to Esquerra and Junts to be able to validate the norm in the vote.
As soon as the session ended, interest was fixed on the speaker of the chamber.
Borràs left the chamber and stopped to talk in a small group where some people from his circle of trust were mixed, in the case of the deputy Francesc de Dalmases and the also deputy and secretary of the Parliament table, Aurora Madaula.
Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas joined them, who was Puigdemont's lawyer and works as a professor of Procedural Law.
The conversation took place in the area where several television cameras and the media usually gather, but Borràs did not make any assessment of the judicial resolution.
She is now closer to having to leave her seat as a deputy in Parliament.
In the event of a sentence of disqualification,
the leader of Junts would have to park (even temporarily) her public career.
Administratively, however, the end of her career may be even closer to her.
Article 25 of the Parliament's regulations regulates the suspension of the rights and duties of deputies.
Section 4 establishes that when a deputy is implicated in crimes of corruption, and the opening phase of the oral trial is final, it is appropriate for the table to agree to the suspension of his parliamentary duties and rights "immediately".
In recent months, Junts has tried to convince Esquerra and the CUP to tweak the precept.
He has also tried to convince his partners that his case cannot be framed within a crime of "corruption" and that, therefore, article 25.4 cannot be applied to him.
At the moment, without success.
Borràs alleges that her role as a pro-independence leader marks her out as a target of state “repression” and encourages judicial persecution against her.
An argument that does not convince Esquerra.
Despite assuming that letting Borràs fall into a disqualification could be the definitive hack to crack the Government, sources from the Republican party emphasize that the assumption that weighs on the leader of Junts escapes a general cause against independence.
For this reason, they do not rule out supporting the application of the regulation once an oral trial is opened against the president.
This Wednesday, the two parties that are partners in the Generalitat staged a good harmony in the plenary session, even with suggestions from Junts to accept sitting at the dialogue table that the ERC has with the PSOE.
However, in Esquerra it is not overlooked that Junts has an internal process open to evaluate the convenience of continuing to form part of the Government.
The presentation of the indictment of the Prosecutor's Office will mark a turning point.
The public ministry will foreseeably request prison sentences and disqualification for the president of the Catalan chamber.
Since his arrival at the head of the ILC in 2013, Borràs allegedly divided contracts artificially to award them by hand to a friend of his, the computer scientist Isaías H., with whom he had previously collaborated.
The amount paid by the cultural institution of the Generalitat to the computer technician exceeds 300,000 euros.
Judge Josep Seguí concludes that, once the last investigative steps have been carried out —including Roger E.'s statement— there are indications that Borràs defrauded the public entity that promotes Catalan literature.
The emails that Borràs and Isaías H. exchanged are the main evidence of the charge in the case.
At the request of Borràs, the computer scientist prepared fictitious budgets that he put in the name of other companies and individuals (false documents).
The court considers that there has also been fraud in the administration and a crime of embezzlement because the invoices presented by Isaías and paid by the ILC "were made with arbitrary criteria", which could have caused damage to the administration.
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