Supreme court upholds corruption trial on former parliament speaker

Spain's Supreme Court upheld former Catalan parliament speaker Laura Borràs' corruption trial, who was found guilty in March 2023 for splitting IT contracts to avoid public tenders.

Borràs faces 4.5 years in prison, 13 years of holding public office, and paying a €36,000 fine after being found guilty of forging official documents, being the initiator of the crime of commercial document forgery, and administrative breach of official duty for splitting contracts to avoid public tenders favoring her friend and IT specialist Isaías Herrero, who pled guilty after securing a deal with the prosecution.

The charges relate to her tenure as head of the Catalan Institute of Letters (ILC) from 2013 to 2018.

The Supreme Court ruled, agreeing with the public prosecutor's office, against granting the amnesty law, as the events did not have any relationship with the independence push, according to judges. 

Borràs, former parliament speaker and former Junts president, cannot benefit from the amnesty law "as the only relation is her clear pro-independence profile," and the law applies "for an individual's crime, rather than a crime for the events, which are the ones being trialed," a statement reads.

Supreme judges also ruled out the partial pardon proposed by the Catalan High Court (TSJC) convicting jury. TSJC recommended partially pardoning her, reducing her sentence by two and a half years, thereby avoiding prison time.

This legal mechanism is used when the court understands that it must impose a certain penalty but considers it excessive. In this case, it is used because "it does not allow for sentence reduction procedures."

Spanish law dictates that in most cases, first-time offenders of financial crimes do not enter prison if their convictions are two years or under. 

Despite the verdict requiring prison time, the Catalan High Court ruling was not final, as Borràs had already announced she would appeal to the Supreme Court.

Borràs could only avoid prison time if Spanish authorities pardoned her. Her defense has already announced they will appeal to the Constitutional Court as "her rights have been violated." This appeal could delay Borràs entering in prison.

'Lawfare' or 'straight corruption'

Junts per Catalunya reacted to the court's uphold by calling it a "lawfare case," as Secretary General Jordi Turull said from the Catalan parliament on Wednesday.

"Spanish justice is becoming more and more the Guantanamo of European justice, and this new chapter confirms the trend," he added before saying that the pro-independence Junts party will "challenge" and would do whatever the former party president and former parliament speaker asks the political party to do.

Turull expressed the party's "utmost support and affection" to Borràs after "a new chapter of rebellion and political fandom seen in Spain's courts for the last months."

Meanwhile, the conservative People's Party welcomed the news, as "we did not expect any other thing," Juan Fernández, spokesperson in parliament, said.

"Being pro-independence cannot mean you are able to walk free of any committed crimes," he added.

Far-right Vox party spokesperson Joan Garriga also welcomed the court's upholding. "Splitting contracts to benefit friends is straight corruption," he said during a press conference in Parliament.

Garriga believes that the Socialists, currently ruling Spain, will "give away border controls and pardon Borràs" to keep the support of pro-independence Junts party, a required support as the Spanish government does not have a majority in government.

Splitting contracts to avoid tenders

Between March 2013 and February 2017, the ILC awarded, "through its director," 18 minor contracts relating to its website, for a total value of €330,000. 

Borràs "intervened" by "proposing and awarding the contract, approving the expenditure, certifying the execution of the service, issuing the corresponding invoice and finally authorizing the payment," according to the High Court judges. 

Of these contracts, six were awarded to Isaías Herrero for a total of €112,500 and one to Andreu Pujol for €20,050. Six contracts were also awarded to Xarxa Integral for €101,035 and three to Freelance for €54,437, two groups Isaías Herrero was a member of.

Although the contracts amounted to a total of €330,000, the ILC paid out €309,000 in the end. 

Shortly after having been appointed director of the ILC, Borràs introduced Isaías Herrero to the staff as head of the website. The two exchanged emails about invoices and contracts, concluding that the same vendor could not file invoices for different items in the same year and that they, therefore, had to "knock on doors" to bill different names and to avoid exceeding the €18,000 maximum for minor contracts.

At the time, public contracts in Catalonia of over €18,000 had to be put to tender. The court found that Borràs fraudulently split a larger payment into smaller contracts in order to be able to select who would be awarded the work and to avoid a public tender process.