Former Catalan government minister Francesc Homs has issued a harsh warning today to Spain's Court of Accounts, and in particular directed at María Esperanza García Moreno, who was the auditing body's investigating delegate in its case against those responsible for the Catalan government's foreign policy action, including the Diplocat offices abroad, between 2011 and 2017. Homs warned that a complaint for abuse of office will be presented if the body does not correct its resolutions.
The defence lawyers have already included among the arguments they have filed before the Court of Accounts the protests over the actions of the investigating delegate, whom they accuse of "administrative arbitrariness that led to unfair rulings." In addition, they warn that these unjust resolutions were adopted knowing that they were improper.
"She is manipulating"
This morning, Homs made this complaint public, in his dual capacity as a lawyer and person under investigation. Speaking in Strasbourg, where he had filed Jordi Turull's appeal to the EU Human Rights court, Homs warned that if the investigating delegate does not correct her action, she will face a "complaint for abuse of office." “She is manipulating, from what we’ve seen so far,” he denounced.
Dissenting vote
In fact, the Court of Accounts' report on this case has already prompted one of the members of its council, María Dolores Genaro Moya, to issue a minority opinion dissenting with its conclusions. She denounced the report for violating the principles of "impartiality, clarity, conciseness, balance and weighting".
The former Catalan minister issued the warning today when asked about his pending appearance before the Court of Accounts on June 29th to respond to the case opened against the Catalan government's foreign policy actions between 2011 and 2017, which affects more than thirty senior Catalan government officials and ministers, and seems set to demand that they pay tens of millions of euros to compensate for the public funds "misspent".
The misnamed Court of Accounts is not actually a fully-fledged court of law - its members are not judges - but rather, it is the senior adminstrative organ responsible for auditing of public accounts in the Spanish state, and most of its members are selected politically.
Infinite brutality
Homs has denounced the action of the Court of Accounts, which has also made demands against the Catalan government of Artur Mas for organizing the unofficial 2014 consultation on independence, and has investigated a case against the Carles Puigdemont administration for the 1st October referendum, has an "infinite brutality."
"Because what is intended through this is, to put it bluntly, the civil death of individuals, the impossibility of having any income, wage or salary... They now see that the intention to use prisons is not working and what they have done so far, and are trying to do, is gag people by way of stripping them naked of everything and using the route of their civil death. That is the purpose," he concluded.
In the main image, former councilor Francesc Homs in an archive photograph / Sergi Alcàzar