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

BarcelonaThe Council of Ministers has agreed to grant a partial pardon to the former President of the Parliament, Laura Borràs, by which her prison sentence of four years, six months, and one day will be commuted to two years. The rest of the sentence (a fine and disqualification of four years and one day) remains, as explained in a statement. The pardon is granted under the terms proposed by the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) itself, which was the one that convicted her, and which already stated in the sentence 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 prevarication and document forgery, and suspended her sentence pending the Spanish government's decision on the measure of grace. The civil and criminal chamber of the court, which inits ruling on the fragmentation of contracts for the Institution 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 Juntsasked the TSJC to take the step –although she had initially said she would not– after the Supreme Court confirmed her conviction on February 10 and rejected applying amnesty to her. And that same week, the Prosecutor's Office had already endorsed that she should not enter prison for the time being. "In order to avoid possible harm to the convicted person if the pardon request is favorably resolved, we do not oppose the suspension of the sentence," the public ministry ruled.

The measure of grace 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 granting or denial of the pardon to the Council of Ministers, which had the final say and has opted today to grant it partially.

"Today the nightmare of believing that I could be deprived of liberty without ever having committed a crime ends." This is how the former President of the Parliament expressed herself on social network X. "But the nightmare will not end until a court determines that not only the sentence but the entire judicial process I have suffered is a great injustice," she added. For this reason, she considered the pardon a "new chapter" in the "fight" for her "honorability," which she continues to "defend in European instances."

Former President Carles Puigdemont has shown Borràs his joy for the partial pardon. "Beyond the evident political nature of the case, which we will always keep in mind, the news is a relief and a cause for joy", he tweeted.

The general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, has been more forceful: "The partial pardon that the Spanish government has granted to Borràs will not whitewash the serious injustice perpetrated by the judges of our robe". Through the X network, Turull has opined that the state executive's decision "does not repair at all the harm already done to the most honorable president Laura Borràs and her family, with damages that will persist with the disqualification".

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 thirteen 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 – and argued 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 agreement with the Prosecutor's Office. The TSJC imposed on the former, beneficiary of the ILC contracts, a sentence of two years in prison, and on the latter, 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 Institute of Catalan Literature, between 2013 and 2018, with contracts amounting to more than 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 rules 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 budgets.

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 on paper it was recorded that three budgets had been submitted as requested by the Generalitat in terms of contracting, but, in reality, they did not exist.