Supreme Court considers investigating senior pro-independence MP for alleged irregular contracts

The head of a Barcelona court has sent a case to the Supreme Court in Madrid to investigate the Junts per Catalunya (JxCat) MP Laura Borràs for the alleged irregular contracts when she presided over the Institution of Catalan Letters, judicial sources have confirmed.

As an official elected to the Spanish congress, Borràs has a certain level of immunity and thus can only be investigated by the Supreme Court. The judge, then, sees signs of potential criminal activity, and for that reason has sent the reasoned statement to the Supreme Court. 

The high court has asked the prosecutor if it should open this investigation. The Barcelona public prosecutor's office already asked a few weeks ago that the Supreme Court take over the research for these contracts.

Borràs has already denied all claims when the case was first released. 

The case relates to the alleged irregular recruitment for the reformation and creation of official web pages and not offering public competitions for the tenders during the time Borràs was head of the institution between 2013 and 2018.

The Institution of Catalan Letters is a public body in charge of promoting Catalan literature and writers, particularly those writing in the Catalan language.

Last December, the then Minister of Culture rejected any type of irregularity in the awarding of contracts. Borràs considered the information "completely misguided" and regretted being a victim of a "lynching public."

In addition, she argued that the adjudications that did not require a public tender (then, those less than 18,000 euros), including three contracts awarded to a former partner at the university, Isaías HF, had been done according to the law.

Three contracts valued at less than 18,000 euros, adding up to a total amount of 45,500 euros, appear on the transparency portal of the Catalan government and are the subject of judicial investigation. Borràs also defended the "professionalism" of this collaborator in the Catalan Parliament.