The Electoral Board withdraws the seat of Laura Borràs after being convicted of falsehood and prevarication

The Central Electoral Board (JEC) has already sentenced the future of Laura Borràs in the Parliament and opens the dance of chairs for her replacement at the head of the institution after months of interim. The administrative body has agreed this Wednesday to definitively strip the Junts leader of her seat in the Catalan Chamber and to issue the deputy credential to Antoni Castellà, the next on the Junts list. The decision of this body comes after the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia sentenced her to four and a half years in prison and 13 years of disqualification from the exercise of public employment or office for a crime of falsehood and another of prevarication, and occurs despite the fact that said sentence is not final, since it is possible to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Invoking the precedents of the ‘expresident’ Quim Torra and the former deputy of the CUP, Pau Juvillathe JEC has rejected the allegations that the Parliament and the former deputy presented and have ruled that Borràs concurs in the “cause of supervening ineligibility” contained in article 6.2 b) of the Organic Law of the Central Electoral Regime (LOREG). The regulations establish that “those convicted by sentence, even if it is not final, for crimes against the Public administration“, among which is the crime of prevarication for which she was sentenced. In addition, it is made clear that “the causes of ineligibility are also incompatibility”, which means that not only can you not choose to present yourself in elections, but that he must lose the seat.The reasons of the JEC will be officially communicated this Thursday to the parties.

the allegations

The decision puts an end to a journey that has been going on since July, when the Parliamentary Bureau suspended Borràs as a parliamentarian and, consequently, as president of the institution, when an oral trial was opened against her for having rigged contracts when she was in charge of the Institution. de les Lletres Catalanes to benefit a friend of his. The agreement of the governing body of the Chamber was never accepted by Borràs who, despite having the functions of deputy suspended, she decided not to leave the presidency, something that meant that no one could run for her position to relieve her. In fact, this same Wednesday a proposal from the PSC that sought to reform the internal regulations to incorporate a sort of motion of censure for the presidents of Parliament due to loss of confidence was put to the vote, but this part has not come to fruition because finally the ERC and CUP they have positioned themselves together with Junts to prevent it. What is still being processed is the part related to the regularization of the telematic vote that would affect the JxCat deputy, Lluís Puig, and the prohibition of hate speech to stop Vox, which EL PERIÓDICO advanced.

The Parliament rejects the modification of the regulation that the PSC proposed to dismiss the presidents of the institution due to loss of confidence

The JEC gave a first notice to the Parliament in mid-April in a letter in which it already described the legal situation of Borràs and opened a period of 10 business days for the Chamber to report on “decisions, resolutions, or any other measures ” that they could have adopted and also offered the former deputy the possibility of presenting allegations. Both the Parliament and the former deputy recorded their arguments on the subject, relying on the regulations of the Chamber and alleging that the sentence must be final, while defending that a decision was made “unnecessary and disproportionate” as Borràs is suspended. The lawyers of the leader of Junts, Gonzalo Boye and Isabel Elbaldelved into that the JEC is “grossly incompetent” to nullify the credentials of the leader of Junts and that this is “usurping the jurisdiction of the courts for the execution of judicial decisions.” However, the JEC does not agree with any of these approaches.

The relay in Parliament

Related news

Borràs’s farewell opens the debate on who will take his place as president of the institution. Although Junts has not wanted to date to discuss who should relieve her, the post-convergents are not willing to lose command either, no matter how much those close to the former deputy have spoken in favor of leaving the position vacant. Leaders like anna erra and Martha Madrenas They are in the pools to replace her and no matter how much Junts broke with ERC in the Government, the Republicans are open to negotiating their support for moderate-minded profiles.

The PSC refuses to facilitate the election of a deputy from Esquerra because it would imply that they have the two main Catalan institutions, and, at the same time, Esquerra, at the gates of the municipal ones, prefers to send the message of seeking agreements within the independence movement. The noise that Borràs intends to make with the intervention of the JEC and the actions of his own party remains to be seen, but the general secretary, Jordi Turullis inclined to avoid any controversy so as not to damage the options of Xavier Trias as mayor of Barcelona. In fact, parliamentary sources do not rule out that the replacement of Borràs will not be addressed until the electoral campaign has been completed, that is, as of next May 28, even more so taking into account that no plenary session will be held until the end of the appointment with the polls

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