The Central Electoral Board (JEC) yesterday started a timer to elucidate the future of Laura Borràs. The administrative body gave ten working days - which will start to be counted next week - to the Parliament of Catalonia, specifically to the first vice-president and acting president of the Chamber, the republican Alba Vergés, to communicate what resolutions the institution in relation to the seat of Borràs after the sentence of disqualification for a crime of prevarication and another of document falsification. Likewise, it gave the possibility to present allegations, both in the Chamber and in Borràs.
The body that acts as an electoral arbiter yesterday studied the letters sent to it by Vox, the PP and Ciutadans to withdraw the deputy's credential from the president of Junts per Catalunya and suspended president of the Chamber after the conviction of four years and a half in prison and 13 years of disqualification issued by the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC).
In this case, the JEC has followed the same script it used with ex-CUP deputy Pau Juvillà in December 2021 - when Borràs presided over the Chamber - and asks Parliament for explanations and gives it room to present allegations if considers it appropriate.
In any case, the JEC's letter points out that, when there is a case of ineligibility resulting from a sentence of disqualification, even if there is no final sentence, the consequences - the removal of the seat and the loss of deputy's record – are "automatic", even if there is no mechanism for this included in the Parliament's regulations.
At first, the members of the administrative body bet on sending the folder relating to Borràs to the corresponding provincial body, the Provincial Electoral Board of Barcelona, already constituted for the municipal elections in May, but in the end it will be the JEC itself that let the file of the leader of Junts stay and whoever ends up acting and making a decision, otherwise the Catalan Chamber will do so in the coming days.
The jurisprudence that established the disqualification of former president Quim Torra last term, after the subsequent appeals that were presented to the Supreme Court, points out that it is the competence of the Parliament to remove a seat when there is a penalty of disqualification, all and that in case of "inactivity" of the institution, or for "any other reason", the electoral arbitrator can carry out the process, as, in fact, he already did with Torra himself and with Juvillà, both sentenced to disqualification for a crime of disobedience; a circumstance different from that of Borràs, convicted of irregularities during her time as director of the Institution of Catalan Letters.
From the PSC, which registered two weeks ago a modification of the rules of the Chamber to be able to expel Borràs, they indicated yesterday that they prefer that it be the Parliament that decides the future of the Junts leader, and not the JEC. "We should not have come this far", pointed out the first secretary of the formation, Salvador Illa, before the resolution of the administrative body was made public.
The ERC, which will play an important role in this matter, consider that the case of Borràs is corruption and that she herself should step aside. However, at the same time, they defend the Parliament's regulations, which do not provide for the withdrawal of the member's record if there is no firm ruling, and they see the action of the JEC as an interference, because they believe that this body is not competent to intervene in this matter Vergés' allegations are likely to follow this thread.
In relation to this matter, but in another area, the defense of Borràs, in charge of penalty judge Gonzalo Boye, has already submitted an appeal of cassation to the Supreme Court to nullify the sentence of the TSJC and alleges the violation of several rights .
