Parliament to appeal the suspension of independence declaration

Barcelona (CNA).- The Parliament's Bureau approved this Tuesday an appeal against the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC)'s decision to suspend the independence declaration. "We don't understand that a jurisdictional body could stop democracy" stated Parliament's first vice-president and 'Junts Pel Sí' MP, Lluís Corominas. The Parliament's Bureau approved the appeal this Tuesday, with the support of pro-independence 'Junts Pel Sí' and alternative left coalition 'Catalunya Sí que es Pot's 5 members of the Bureau. The Bureau’s two Anti-Catalan nationalism representatives, from Ciutadans and the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), voted against the proposal. "The declaration of independence did have an unconstitutional component" stated Ciutadans' representative in the Parliament's Bureau, José María Espejo, who argued that the pro-independence proposal stated that "only those laws approved by the Catalan Parliament would be obeyed". Friday will be the last day to present any such appeals and the Catalan government's legal services have already received the order to start preparing the document.

"The basis of democracy is that a parliamentary body can make this kind of declaration" insisted Corominas, referring to the independence declaration approved by the Parliament on the 9^th of November. He didn't specify what will be the exact petitions of the appeals that will be presented against the TC's resolutions. However, he emphasised that the majority of the Parliament's Bureau rejected that a court could be able to paralyse the activity of a legislative chamber. Friday will be the last day to present any such appeals and the Catalan government's legal services have already received the order to start preparing the document.

As a response to the petition of alternative left coalition 'Catalunya Sí que es Pot', the Parliament's Bureau will finally ask the legal services of the Generalitat to elaborate a report on the legal consequences of the independence declaration.

Creation of non-legislative commissions

"The Parliament is not paralysed" highlighted Corominas during his appearance before the media. To demonstrate this, he announced that those commissions which aren't subject to the President's investiture will be constituted in the coming days.

The Parliament's Bureau also agreed to admit the petition presented by 'Catalunya Sí que es Pot' and the PSC asking to convene an extraordinary plenary session on the social emergency and the economic reactivation. Both parties urged the Parliament to hold this session before the end of the year, whether there is a new President invested by that time or not.

Same budget for the Parliamentary groups as in the last 3 years

Besides the Parliament's Bureau, this Tuesday the Amplified Bureau, which includes People's Party (PP) and radical left CUP MPs, also met. They approved the subsidies for the seven parliamentary groups represented in the chamber. The total amount for 2016 is 15,837,000 euros, which is the same as in the last three years, and far from the 18 million designated for the parliamentary groups in 2011 and 2012.