Parliament bureau approves Puigdemont voting by proxy despite lawyers’ warnings

The Catalan parliament bureau has approved a request from former president Carles Puigdemont and three other MPs to continue voting through a delegate—a request that, parliament lawyers warned, contradicted a previous agreement by pro-independence parties to substitute them.

 

The decision comes after a major quarrel between Junts per Catalunya (JxCat) and Esquerra (ERC), the two ruling parties in Catalonia. The reason: how to respond to a Spanish court order to suspend 6 MPs accused of rebellion for organizing a referendum on independence.

That includes the leaders of both parties concerned: on the one hand, Carles Puigdemont, exiled in Belgium, and on the other, former vice president Oriol Junqueras, who’s been in pre-trial jail for almost a year.

On Tuesday, Parliament passed a motion that rejected the suspension of the MPs while it opened the door for them to designate a substitute. Yet, only Junqueras' party did that.

Puigdemont’s party insisted their MPs would continue to vote through a delegate as they have been doing for the past few months. They say the plenary voted against their suspension, and they consider their political rights as elected representatives to be untouchable.

After long negotiations, the Parliament speaker, from Junqueras' Esquerra party, asked for a letter from each of them confirming they would be delegating their vote: Puigdemont and his colleagues agreed, but parliament lawyers later warned that such petition contradicted the motion approved on Tuesday.

The parliament session was later postponed until the following week.

A year ago, Puigdemont and Junqueras defied Spain and organized a referendum on independence. But it came at a high cost. The government was sacked, and officials who made the vote possible are now facing prison sentences of up to 30 years.