Catalan parties question Parliament speaker’s UN trip

The decision by the Catalan Parliament speaker, Roger Torrent, to travel to Geneva to meet UN officials to report “violations of fundamental rights” in Catalonia has drawn criticism from some parties in the chamber. Torrent made the decision to travel to the international organization after Spain’s Supreme Court again blocked Jordi Sànchez’s bid to be sworn in as president last week. The refusal by the Supreme Court to allow Sànchez to attend the chamber came despite a ruling from the UN Human Rights Committee urging Spain to guarantee the jailed MP’s “political rights.”

A spokeswoman from the Catalan socialist party, which opposes independence, criticized the speaker on Tuesday for making the trip. “What we want is an agreement of this parliamentary majority and an effective investiture. Enough trips and looking for excuses,” she said. The spokeswoman’s comments came after a meeting of the parliament bureau in the morning at which a motion to revoke the parliamentary resolution allowing former president Carles Puigdemont to vote by proxy was rejected. In fact, the socialists said they would not appeal and would leave any decision to strike down the resolution to the courts.