Speaker Laura Borràs will finally stand trial over ILC case

BarcelonaA Catalan High Court Judge has decided this Tuesday to send Catalan Speaker Laura Borràs to trial in the case of the Institution of Catalans Letters (ILC), where she has been accused of malfeasance and forgery. The Prosecutor's Office is asking for a six-year prison sentence and a 21-year ban from office, as it considers that she deliberately split contracts when she directed the ILC to avoid oversight and benefit a friend, who has also been indicted in the case. A third person, who the Public Prosecutor's Office defines as "necessary collaborator", has also been indicted.

Borràs will sit in the dock and will have to answer for 18 contracts currently under suspicion and with a total cost of about €300,000. The Speaker has always denied the accusations against her and claims it is a case of "political persecution".

With this development, Speaker Borràs, who is also the president of a party in the ruling coalition, Together for Catalonia (JxCat), is left a step away from being suspended as an MP. The Parliamentary bureau will have to decide whether to apply Article 25.4 of Parliament's regulations, which state MPs must be suspended once indicted for crimes related to corruption.

The news has arrived, in fact, while the ordinary meeting of Parliament's bureau was taking place, which started at half past ten in the morning and is discussing various parliamentary matters.