The decision of the pro-independence groups in the Catalan Parliament to respond to the request of the chamber's Bureau, headed by Laura Borràs, and to suspend parliamentary activity for a period of time, without it being known whether it will be hours or days, over the case of Pau Juvillà - an MP or an ex-MP, that is the question - is a measure as exceptional as it is surprising. It can only be understood in the narrow space that exists between disobedience and an action strong enough and visible enough to take the case of Juvillà beyond the doors of Parliament, trying, at the same time, not to stumble into any action that could be criminally pursued and, consequently, could lead to disqualification from office. Meanwhile, the Central Electoral Commission (JEC) has been silent since last Friday, when it informed Parliament that Juvillà had ceased to be an MP and gave his credentials as a parliamentarian to the next name on the CUP's candidacy for Lleida.
Nor has the Supreme Court spoken, when it is, after all, the body that has to give the final ruling over Juvillà's banning from parliamentary office in accordance with the decision of the High Court of Catalonia. The Supreme Court has unlimited time to communicate to Parliament and the house is reluctant to give finality to the decision of a body such as the JEC, which is administrative and not judicial. The solution of suspending the activities of the chamber has fractured the Parliament in two halves once again, with the PSC, Commons, Vox, Ciudadanos and the PP having gone their own way. These last three names, the right-wing trio, have already announced with varying intensity that they plan to take the matter to court. The Socialists of the PSC have also opened the door to initiating legal action, as well as pointing out that meetings of the committees they chair will go ahead to bypass the existing boycott.
The majority, made up of the 74 deputies from ERC, Junts and the CUP, follows the line of speaker Borràs, although with many nuances, which should not be surprising either, as it is typical of the long-standing partisan disunity. Even in the sphere of Junts, solidarity with Borràs's decision is, in many cases, for public consumption rather than maintained within the organization and among the MPs themselves. Partly due to ignorance of the initiative - which was taken when the cabinet was just sitting down to its weekly meeting and its members, both those of ERC and Junts, found out about it through the digital newspapers - but also because they are aware that it opens a crisis when it is more than proven that after the verdicts in the independence process-related trials, the Catalan Parliament is anything but fully sovereign and that an act of disobedience cannot be improvised.
The chamber of Catalan deputies seems to be trying to wait for the report of the MPs Committee on whether or not to withdraw the seat from Juvillà. A committee that has a new chairperson, in the person of lawyer Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas. It is obvious to any observer that the decision of the JEC to withdraw the CUP deputy's seat is an abuse in all respects and this body is going way beyond the limits of its functions, because if this were not about the Parliament of Catalonia and a pro-independence MP, perhaps it would have waited for the final ruling on the removal of the MP's seat to be given by the Supreme Court.
Never are two cases exactly identical, whether in justice or politics. Nevertheless, the will of the Spanish judiciary to find a minimum margin that allows it to remove pro-independence leaders from political activity is clear. No-one should be fooled: this is how Quim Torra ended up stripped of the presidency of Catalonia, for hanging a banner on the balcony of the Generalitat palace. It is enough that there are things in common between them at a time when the exception has been normalized. Borràs is trying to avoid a disobedience ruling, but the line between what the Spanish penal code says and how it is interpreted is so narrow that it is not certain that she will succeed. It may be that, for the judges or prosecutors, she has already crossed it.