Vergés and Borràs claim before the Electoral Board that it is not competent to remove the seat from the president of the Board

The suspended president of the Parliament, Laura Borràs, and the acting vice-president of the institution, Alba Vergés, have alleged in separate writings before the Central Electoral Board (JEC) that it is not a competent body to withdraw the credentials of the deputies of the Catalan Chamber.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
28 April 2023 Friday 05:30
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Vergés and Borràs claim before the Electoral Board that it is not competent to remove the seat from the president of the Board

The suspended president of the Parliament, Laura Borràs, and the acting vice-president of the institution, Alba Vergés, have alleged in separate writings before the Central Electoral Board (JEC) that it is not a competent body to withdraw the credentials of the deputies of the Catalan Chamber.

The JEC gives a period of ten working days to both Borràs, president of Junts per Catalunya, and to the republican Vergés, for the position she holds in the institution, so that they will present allegations about the removal of the seat to the leader of JxCat who had requested by PP, Ciudadanos and Vox after his sentence of disqualification for a crime of prevarication and document falsification, for his time in the Institution of Catalan Letters.

As has already been done in other similar cases –that of the former president of the Generalitat Quim Torra and the former deputy of the CUP Pau Juvillà, although they were disqualified for a crime of disobedience, not related to corruption–, the Parliament has alleged before the electoral referee who is not competent to withdraw the credentials of a deputy convicted in the first instance, especially considering that the sentence is not final and it is still possible to appeal to the Supreme Court.

In any case, the precedents lead us to anticipate that the administrative body will remove the seat from Borràs and will issue the credentials of the next deputy on the list, a circumstance that will occur in the coming days, at the gates of the electoral campaign for the municipal elections. next May 28.

Borràs's brief was presented by his lawyers, Gonzalo Boye and Isabel Elbal, while Vergés sent a brief signed by Parliament's legal services. Unlike the brief that was filed with Pau Juvillà, in this case the Parliament alleges that the Junts representative has been provisionally suspended through the application of article 25.4 of the regulation, an event that happened at the end of July.

In his letter, Borràs also denounces the "violation of rights", something that he has also transferred to the Supreme Court in the appeal. For its part, the Parliament also alleges that the Constitutional Court has not yet ruled on the affectation of fundamental rights in similar matters, and that incompatibilities are a matter of parliamentary law and of application of parliamentary bodies.

In ERC they have actively and passively asked that Borràs take a step back and today its president, Oriol Junqueras, has once again charged against the leader of Junts. "Splitting contracts does not help the independence movement at all," he stressed in an interview with Efe, in which he calls for "responsibility" from the post-convergent training.

However, this has not been an obstacle for Vergés, through the Parliament, to present allegations against the withdrawal of the seat for what they consider an interference in the institution. Despite the position of the Republicans in this matter, the president of Junts already criticized Vergés a few days ago.