The decision of judge Carlos Ramos of the High Court of Catalonia (TSJC) to send to trial the speaker of the Catalan Parliament, Laura Borràs, is a decisive and momentous step in the difficult struggle that the pro-independence leader maintains with Spanish justice and which, sooner rather than later, will separate her, at the least, from institutional politics. An uncertain period of hours or a very few days now opens, in which the Bureau of Parliament will have to clarify whether to suspend her from her functions with immediate effect, as indicated in article 25.4 of the Rules of the Chamber, or to send her case to the paralimentary committee responsible for the rules affecting MPs, with this latter hypothesis seeming unlikely at the moment, given the correlation of political forces in Parliament and the position that the political groups have been adopting in the hours since the formal announcement that the case is going to trial.
Speaker Borràs has not changed her attitude since judge Ramos issued his decision and she maintains her position of not resigning from the position she has held since March of last year when she was elected on the second ballot with the support from ERC and Junts, in compliance with the implicit agreement between the two parties whereby the largest pro-independence party facilitated its votes to the second in order to gain access to the speakership of parliament and, in return, reserved its ability to negotiate the presidency of the Catalan government. With regard to the two alleged offences for which she will be tried, abuse of authority and document falsification, the public prosecutor in the Catalan High Court is demanding 6 years' imprisonment and a 21-year ban on holding public office, the highest range of sentences established by the Penal Code for the offences.
Much has been said and written these months about the consistency of the offences she is accused of committing during her time as director of the Institute of Catalan Letters and about the political position of Borràs, who defends her innocence and maintains that it is a case of political persecution: that is, lawfare. I have always denounced the interference of justice in the political situation in Catalonia during the last years and how for spurious reasons the resignation of the president of the Generalitat, Quim Torra, was forced in September 2020 for the act of hanging some banners on the Catalan government's Generalitat palace - just as previously the Catalan government had been suspended in application of article 155 of the Spanish Constitution and the president Carles Puigdemont forced to depart to exile in October 2017, and just as there was persecution of Catalan president Artur Mas and Barcelona mayor Xavier Trias - of which now, in addition, we have documentary evidence in audio format recorded by the ex-police commissioner Villarejo.
This is not to mention the long list of Catalan independence supporters targeted by reprisals from the Spanish state, a group which Òmnium Cultural has calculated includes more than 4,000 people. Confidence in the Spanish justice system when dealing with issues relating to independence, zero. The exaggeration in the sentence demanded for Borràs is further proof of the degree of cruelty when it comes to judging a pro-independence leader. We must add the presumption of innocence, which the speaker of parliament possesses, the same as any other citizen does. Having said that, the case of Borràs, the decisions to split the invoices and award the contract to an acquaintance are not just administrative irregularities. Finding the point where the institution is not harmed is the obligation of all parties, including Junts, even if the other political forces make partisan use of the situation of the speaker of parliament.