The controversies that have rocked Parliament as a result of its opaque internal management have jumped to the Antifraud Office, which has investigated possible favoritism in competitions for civil servants or in the hiring as temporary staff of family members of employees of the institution, as well as the prebends of the licenses by age.
These privileges, which provided a golden retirement, receiving the full salary, to the workers of the Chamber from the age of 60 until the legal retirement age, were repealed in February 2022, in the middle of a public scandal. Even so, the last twelve licenses were granted when their abolition was already being negotiated.
These irregularities and others were reported to the office headed by magistrate Miguel Ángel Gimeno, who in the spring, during the suspension of Laura Borràs as deputy, sent a letter to the first vice president, Alba Vergés, who was the functions of president, in which she requested permission to investigate.
In an anonymous letter, he was alerted to a series of uses and customs long established in the Catalan Chamber and which, according to legal sources consulted, could be considered illegal. Now, Antifrau finalizes its answer.
As it is an institution protected by its statutory nature, which defines its inviolability, unlike city councils, deputations and other consortia, the law obliges the Antifraud Office - the body in charge of ruling on conflicts of interest in the public sector – to request authorization to intervene in Parliament.
The Bureau discussed whether or not to allow Antifrau to investigate and on May 9, for the first time, after several previous occasions when the office had unsuccessfully tried to investigate the operation of the institution, it agreed to open the doors and the archives of the Parliament and provide the information that was required.
Among other cases, the complainant refers to an alleged favorable treatment offered by the former secretary general of the Parliament Esther Andreu, who had to resign on May 31 of last year, when it was revealed that the recruitment as interim of his son had not conformed to the correct legality and that, moreover, he had not warned of the kinship relationship, which forced him to refrain from participating in the selection process.
A second controversial appointment, more distant in time and which also appears in the extensive complaint sent to Antifrau, is that of the partner of another lawyer, who, according to the indictment, benefited from a contract as leave the House which made it necessary to expand ad hoc the number of vacant places. This happened during the presidency of the republican Roger Torrent, and even then the members of Junts d'aquella Mesa, Eusebi Campdepadrós and Josep Costa, opposed this way of doing things.
The anonymous complaint states that historically Parliament has tried to cover up, a practice that would result in an obstruction of the right to information, these alleged corruptions for the benefit of specific people and for whom collusion between officials and politicians was necessary. If they were proven to be true, legal sources point out that Antifraud would have to raise them with the public prosecutor's office, since they would involve a possible crime of prevarication that, ultimately, could mean that the appointments in question were declared null and void.
