The Court of Accounts (TCu) today holds the accounting trial for the money allegedly used improperly for the organization of the referendum of October 1, 2017 and for the external action carried out by the Generalitat to promote the independence process. Thirty-five defendants, including former presidents Carles Puigdemont and Artur Mas, and 3.4 million euros that they are asked to return.
In theory, this matter is destined for closure because it is one of the assumptions included in the amnesty law proposal registered on Monday in the Congress of Deputies by the PSOE and that the majority of its partners will support for its approval. However, from the supervisory body, as would occur in any other court, as long as the text is not approved and promulgated it does not have any legal validity and therefore the process must continue until this occurs.
After the trial, counselor Elena Hernáez must determine what improper expenses could have been justified that have been used by the Government since 2011. According to the provisional liquidation, the period analyzed goes from 2011 to 2017 for the promotion abroad of the processes and in this last year for the organization of 1-O when it was declared illegal by the Constitutional Court and its celebration was prohibited by the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC).
The sentence handed down by this counselor can be appealed before the TCu Chamber itself and then before the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court. Until it reaches the High Court, the sentence will not be final and therefore enforceable. For this reason, and with the text of the law in hand, in all probability the sentence will not be applied.
The bill says that acts that have been declared or were classified as crimes or as conduct determining administrative or accounting responsibility, linked to the consultation held in Catalonia on November 9, 2014 and the referendum of October 1, 2014, will be amnesty. 2017 (both declared unconstitutional in the rulings of the Constitutional Court), which would have been carried out between January 1, 2012, the year in which the events of the independence process began to take place, and November 13, 2023.
According to the law, 2011 is not covered and the Prosecutor's Office sets the accounting debt from that year, so once the law is approved it must be determined if there is any fringe that is not amnestied.
In addition, the rule establishes as an exception to the amnesty accounting processes with a final and executed sentence. Under this heading, the accounting cause for 1-O and the foreign action should be amnestied.
Defense sources do recognize that with the law in hand it will be difficult to recover the five million already paid by the Court of Accounts ruling for 9-N, with the former president of the Generalitat Artur Mas as the most responsible.
Likewise, if a ruling is not issued before the law is approved, once published the court must automatically lift the precautionary measures, which means that it must return the 5.4 million euros of bail that the court imposed and that It was financed with the endorsement of the Catalan Institute of Finances (ICF), dependent on the Generalitat.
To carry out the amnesty, the bill modifies article 39 of the organic law that regulates the operation of the Court of Accounts to include among the reasons for exemption "those who have committed acts that have been amnestied in the terms in which they are established in the law.”
The Court of Accounts only has one option to stop the amnesty, which is to present a question of unconstitutionality before the Constitutional Court, which would delay the application of the grace measure until the position of the guarantee body on this matter is known.
Meanwhile, the process will continue and today the hearing will be held, which is expected to last a short time. Once the counselor has rejected Puigdemont's testimony at the request of other defendants by videoconference, among other things because today there is a national arrest warrant against him.
Without their interrogation, only an official from the General Intervention of the State Administration (IGAE) and two university professors linked to the internationalization of the process will be heard. Afterwards, the parties - the defenses, the Prosecutor's Office and the Catalan Civil Society - will present their final conclusions although the counselor has allowed them to deliver them in writing.
While the Prosecutor's Office and the popular action will demand that the money used for what they consider an illegitimate purpose such as preparing the independence of Catalonia be returned, the defenses will support that the money was correctly used. Puigdemont and Mas are claimed for 2,486,790 and 739,918 euros, respectively.
The former Catalan vice-president and leader of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, is being sued for the same amount as Puigdemont and the former Minister of Economy Andreu Mas-Colell for the same amount as Mas.
