The trial date for Laura Borràs is approaching. Today the composition of the court that will judge the suspended president of the Parlament in the case for the alleged division of contracts in the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes has been known. The court will be headed by the president of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC), Jesús María Barrientos. Barrientos will preside over the room as always happens when a trial is held in the TSJC, except if he is challenged, and he will also be the rapporteur of the sentence, that is, the drafter of the resolution.
This has been communicated by the TSJC to the parties involved in the procedure through a resolution this Monday. The judges who will complete the court are Fernando Lacaba, magistrate of the conservative Professional Association of the Magistracy and magistrate María Jesús Manzano, of the appeals section. Against this resolution, the parties may file an appeal. Barrientos, who presided over the court that sentenced Artur Mas, Irene Rigau and Joana Ortega for the 9-N referendum and also disqualified former president Quim Torra for hanging a banner for the freedom of the procés prisoners, was removed from the hearing that judged the former president of the Parliament, Roger Torrent, and the pro-independence members of the Chamber's Bureau.
At the request of the first vice president, Josep Costa, the court recused him, considering that there could be doubts about his impartiality, recalling that the magistrate stood up in protest at a Torrent conference at the Barcelona Bar Association after noticing that he was wearing a tie yellow on the flap.
The trial against Laura Borràs has not yet set a date. The court is waiting for the president to deliver her defense brief for which she requested more time to include an expert computer test. To carry out the expert opinion, the president's defense hired the far-rightist, Emilio Hellín, convicted of the murder in 1980 of the young Yolanda González. His lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, justified the decision by saying that he had hired Hellín because he was the best at what he did. The Prosecutor's Office asks Borràs for a sentence of six years in prison and 21 years of disqualification for the crimes of prevarication and forgery in public documents.
