Parliament lawyers open door for suspended MPs to not giving up seats

The Catalan Parliament lawyers have opened the door for the six suspended MPs to avoid having to give up their seats.

A report handed in on Monday evening states that they might be temporarily replaced by existing lawmakers.

This way they could still keep their right to vote with a fellow MP representing them – as they do now because none of them can attend the sessions – and they could also promote parliamentary initiatives.

The lawmaker replacing them while suspended would be one of the officials who is already an MP, meaning that so no new politicians would be standing in for them.

This, after the Spanish Supreme Court suspended six pro-independence lawmakers, including former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and former vice president Oriol Junqueras.

The Spanish Penal Code allows judges to do so for individuals prosecuted for rebellion and with a prison order hanging over them.

The Catalan parliament speaker, Roger Torrent, said that he would do his utmost to defend the MPs "political rights," while the unionist parties called on him to comply with the judicial decision.

The Parliament bureau will meet on Tuesday morning and it might take a final decision on the issue on time for the plenary session starting in the afternoon.