No sooner said than done. The leader of the PSC and head of the opposition, Salvador Illaannounced this Monday to hype and cymbals that his group would make a move to remove Laura Borras of the presidency of the Parliament and this same Tuesday he has already registered his proposal to reform the regulations of the institution. It is a modification that they qualify as “surgical” and in which it is incorporated that the absolute majority of the plenary session is sufficient to dismiss any of the members of the table, also from its presidency. It would not even be necessary for this to be a conviction, as is the case of Borràs, but rather a “loss of confidence” It would be enough to raise a dismissal that would be limited to the position, not to the condition of deputy.
The bill has been registered by single readthat is, for the express way. The Socialists want it to be included in the agenda of the plenary session on April 19 so that it can be definitively approved in the session at the beginning of May. His proposal runs parallel to the probable intervention of the Electoral Board to withdraw the seat from Borràs, since Ciutadans, PP and Vox have already required the intervention of this administrative body. Even so, the PSC considers that, whether or not it arrives on time, the reform must be approved to cover what they consider “a lagoon” of the regulation because it does not have a removal mechanism that the regulations of other Chambers do have, such as that of Basque Country and the one of the Balearic Islands.
The small print of the reform
In the registered text, the PSC proposes the incorporation of two articles. The first details the cases for which the status of member of the Parliament table would be lost: due to the loss of deputy status as established by law, voluntary resignation, if ceases to belong to the parliamentary group for which he was chosen and for removal from office decided by an absolute majority of the plenary. The great novelty is in the last two cases, since the one that refers to the departure of the group of origin is directly designed to “combat cases of turncoat” and the other, the one that would directly affect Borràs, the loss of confidence.
To activate this removal mechanism, includes the socialist proposal, a petition would be needed from two groups parliamentarians or a fifth part of the deputies. Its debate and vote is established for the next scheduled plenary session and, if successful, the vacancy must be filled in that same session.
The second of the articles refers to the cases for which the status of member or president of the board of a commission, and they are exactly the same ones for which the departure from the Parliament table is contemplated, as is the mechanism for requesting and choosing a substitute. If it were approved, it would serve to remove a leader at the head of a commission that the majority of the Chamber has lost confidence in. Juntas deputy Francesc de Dalmases He currently chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee despite the fact that he was sanctioned and reprimanded by the majority of Parliament for having intimidated a journalist.
Alícia Romero: “Our objective is to normalize the institution, to dignify it”. We cannot sit idly by.”
“Our objective is normalize the institutiondignify it”. We cannot sit idly by,” argued the spokesperson for the PSC in Parliament, Alicia Romero, after registering the proposal. Most of the institution’s groups, with the exception of Junts, have called on Borràs to leave office on her own accord after her conviction for “corruption”, but she has made it clear that she will not do so of her own free will. because the sentence is not final. Article 24 of the Parliament’s regulations establishes that only with a final verdict does a deputy lose the minutes, an internal rule that has already been surpassed on two occasions by the intervention of the Electoral Board in the cases of the ‘ex-president’ Quim Torra and the former deputy of the CUP Pau Juvilla.
Another hot potato in the middle of the campaign
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The Socialists assure that they have already begun to speak with the groups so that at the meeting of the board of spokespersons for the April 11 it can be agreed that it is incorporated in the next plenary session and that its final approval is in the scheduled session beginnings of May. Processed by single reading, it would not be necessary for the reform to go through commission nor would it require a prior opinion. There is a precedent for express reform of the regulation: it was made in 2011, to create the figure of the parliamentary subgroups.
What happens if, before an eventual approval of this reform, the Electoral Board intervenes? For socialists, this scenario would not invalidate your proposal: “Is a anomaly that a president of the Generalitat can be revoked with a motion of no confidence and a similar tool is not available in the case of a president of the Parliament”. Another new hot potato, which is added to the withdrawal of pensions for ex-presidents, falls into the hands of the groups in the middle of the electoral campaign.