The Spanish government partially pardons Laura Borràs and reduces her prison sentence

BarcelonaThe Council of Ministers has agreed to grant partial pardon to the former president of the Parliament, Laura Borràs, by which her prison sentence of 4 years, 6 months, and 1 day will be commuted to another of two years. The rest of the sentence (fine and disqualification of 4 years and 1 day) remains, as explained in a statement. The pardon is granted in the terms proposed by the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) itself, which was the one that convicted her, and which in the sentence already stated that the prison sentence was “disproportionate and excessive”.

In fact, a year ago, the TSJC had already formalized the request for a partial pardon for Laura Borràs, convicted of embezzlement and document forgery, and had suspended her sentence pending the Spanish government's decision on the clemency measure. The civil and criminal chamber of the court, which in its sentence for the splitting of contracts at the Institute of Catalan Letters (ILC) already proposed the pardon, sent the request to the Ministry of Justice.

The former president of the Parliament and former leader of Junts asked the TSJC to take the step –although she had initially said she would not do so– after the Supreme Court confirmed her conviction on February 10 and refused to apply amnesty to her. And that same week the Prosecutor's Office had already endorsed that she did not have to go to prison for the time being. "In order to avoid possible harm to the convicted person in the event that the pardon request is favorably resolved, it does not oppose the suspension of the sentence," ruled the public ministry.

The clemency measure was, therefore, in the hands of Pedro Sánchez's executive. And the Ministry of Justice, headed by Félix Bolaños, was responsible for processing the request and making the formal proposal for the concession or denial of the pardon to the Council of Ministers, which had the final say and has opted today to grant it partially.

In March 2023, Borràs was convicted of crimes of prevarication and document forgery to a sentence of four and a half years in prison and 13 years of disqualification, in addition to a fine of 36,000 euros. The Supreme Court ruled out that Borràs could benefit from the amnesty - which she requested -, arguing that this law is not applicable to corruption offenses unrelated to the 'Procés'. The other two defendants, businessmen Isaías Herrero and Andreu Pujol, profited from the deal with the Prosecutor's Office. The TSJC imposed on the first, beneficiary of the ILC contracts, a sentence of two years in prison, and on the second, one year and two months. The court considered both of them "necessary co-operators" in the document forgery, but applied the mitigating circumstance of confession, with which they incriminated Borràs.

The origin of the case

The leader of Junts was convicted of favoring Herrero when she directed the Institution of Catalan Letters, between 2013 and 2018, with contracts amounting to over 300,000 euros. The court considered it proven that she, as the highest contracting authority of the ILC, decided "personally", "directly", and "without submitting" to public procurement regulations that Herrero would be the one in charge of the web portal and other assignments that arose over time.

Despite the lawyers' attempts to set aside the emails between Borràs and Herrero, the magistrates used them as proof that the contracts were "split" to avoid a public tender that would allow free competition from other companies, and also to demonstrate that she was colluding with the businessman to submit false bids.

The chamber thus demonstrated the crime of document forgery, as it placed Borràs directly as a participant in the simulation that there were other offers besides Herrero's. "They allowed payments to Isaías Herrero to be channeled without the illegality being discovered in the controls to which public procurement is subjected," the sentence dictated, as the paper stated that three bids had been submitted as requested by the Generalitat in terms of procurement, but in reality, they did not exist.