The decision has been adopted by two votes to one, understanding that it affects the right of defense of the defendants
The resolution, which will be announced in the coming days, takes into account that the rule on which they are based is not contested
The Court of Auditors has revoked by the minimum the decision of the investigating delegate of the procedure opened for the accounting responsibility that could be incurred by the external action of the Government and has agreed to admit the guarantees of the Catalan Institute of Finances (ICF), used by former presidents of the Generalitat Artur Mas and Carles Puigdemont, the former vice president Oriol Junqueras and other exalted positions of the Government to cover the €5.4 million imposed on them by way of provisional liquidation.
Sources from the court have indicated to EL PERIÓDICO that the order in which it is agreed to estimate the resources presented by the defenses will be known in the coming days, because it will have to be redrafted, since the paper that the counselor led to the deliberations Rebecca Laliga has declined, not being supported by the other two counselors who make up the Chamber of Justice that had to review the appeals, Diego Iniguez and Rosario Garcia.
Laliga, who in the last renewal of the supervisory body was appointed counselor at the proposal of the PP, was in favor of ratifying the decision of the investigating delegate Hope Garcia, who understood it impossible to accept a public guarantee for an action that could come from an accounting responsibility, nor could it be from a crime. Remaining in the minority, he will shape his arguments in a particular vote.
Law in force
The position of Íñiguez and García is based on the fact that the law with which the Generalitat authorized the guarantees was never appealed and is therefore in force, so the Court of Auditors cannot reject guarantees that in any case will have to be be returned in case of final conviction.
To get to that point, the magistrates previously understood that the appeals filed by the defendants should be processed in accordance with the regulatory law of the supervisory body, since they affected the right of defense of the defendants, because their goods and properties are at stake, that when they put as collateral when the guarantees were rejected.
In fact, both Mas and the one who was his ‘conseller’ of the Presidency, Francesc Homs, tried to put their homes as collateral. It was pending because the embargo that was imposed on them due to the condemnation of the 9-N consultation, in 2014, was not lifted until a few weeks ago.
definitely out
On the other hand, in a car to which this newspaper has had access, the accounts counselor Elena Hernáez has been definitively expelled from the procedure to the State Advocacy, the Generalitat, the Diplocat and the entity Catalan Lawyers for the Constitutionsince none of them has filed a claim for accounting liability.
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So far it has only done Catalan Civil Society that claims 5.3 million eurosalthough from now on the prosecution has 20 days to formalize its own.
The State Attorney’s Office announced even before the procedure passed to this intermediate phase that it would withdraw on the understanding that the only administration allegedly harmed by the actions of the defendants would be the Generalitat, so it should be its legal services that They would appear if they understood it convenient.