The Parliament of Catalonia seems to have gone back several years as a result of what it experienced with the delegation of the vote of the deputy Lluís Puig (JxCat), who maintains his act and all his prerogatives despite residing in Brussels, fled from Spanish justice. "We are in the same old loop," notes a non-independence deputy given the fact that the pro-independence majority has allowed Puig to vote in the first parliamentary vote after the Constitutional Court's ruling against this power, a couple of weeks ago .
The Parliamentary Bureau, led by Alba Vergés, the vice president of the Chamber with the functions of president since the suspension of Laura Borràs, has ignored the ruling of the High Court that concluded that the post-convergent deputy cannot vote because the assumptions for the delegation do not concur of vote that includes the regulations of the Chamber. The ruling of the Constitutional Court, in response to the request for amparo from the PSC, annulled the delegation of vote, but the court did not issue any warning in case of disobedience against the institution.
That is what the pro-independence majority (ERC and Junts) have accepted, which on Tuesday decided to implement a transitional solution so that Puig could vote in plenary session that began this Wednesday. This is an ERC proposal to circumvent the sentence by temporarily recovering the remote participation system while the telematic voting that was enabled during the pandemic period is not implemented again.
This transitory system is what has allowed Puig to vote despite the court ruling in the first plenary session this week. It was during the vote on the processing by single reading of the bill for the creation of the Lluçanès region. Despite the mess, what was already happening in the parliamentary votes has happened, that Vergés has counted Puig's vote out loud along with those of the rest of the deputies of his party but the services of the Chamber have not reflected it in the screens that show the votes so as not to be exposed to judicial retaliation. In any case, it is expected that, as was also the case up to now, the minutes of the Parliament do include Puig's vote.
This reflection in the minutes is what attributes legal effects to the fact and what could place Vice President Vergés in a compromised situation. In fact, the main group in the Chamber, the PSC-Units, is the one who has been at all times against the decisions that the Board has been adopting in favor of the Junts deputy. The Socialists have presented two requests for reconsideration to the Table this Wednesday, before the vote, also Citizens, but all have been rejected.
Those of Salvador Illa have expressed their strong disagreement with the admission of the delegated vote with a solution that returns Parliament to times past, where the pro-independence majority once again resorts to "cunning" to "skip the sentences", denounced the spokeswoman, Alícia Rosemary.
Romero has criticized that this way of proceeding by ERC and Junts "does not help to normalize or give prestige" to an institution "already discredited" as a result of the Borràs case and has remarked that the ruling of the Constitutional Court in this regard "is clear". In addition, he has regretted that the pro-independence majority has imposed itself to apply an "exceptional" solution that in no case responds to Puig's idiosyncrasies because telematic voting, which is not currently used in Parliament, can only be exercised in cases exceptional, and "Lluís Puig's is not".
The Socialists also see several contradictions in the ERC's behavior in this matter, because they accept the delegated vote of the deputy "but they will comply with what the JEC says" in the case of Borràs. In addition, they remember that the previous president of the Parliament, Roger Torrent, did not accept that of Carles Puigdemont. Faced with this situation, those of Illa promise to "make all the appropriate decisions", among which are a new request for amparo to the TC that on this occasion could incorporate a warning to Vergés, and in such a case, place it in a judicially compromised position .
