Borràs announced that she would be president of the Junts foundation... why isn't she there yet?

BarcelonaOn October 23, a few days before the Junts congress to renew the leadership, Carles Puigdemont announced his step forward for the presidency of the party and Laura Borràs on her desire to take on leadership of a new foundation linked to Junts. An entity that until then was linked to Democrats, Toni Castellà's party. Now, three months after the conclave, Borràs is still not president of the foundation. In fact, just last week the party's executive proposed her name, but the appointment will still take weeks to arrive, according to the sources consulted.

Why? According to the statutes approved at the last congress, it is necessary for the national council of the party to ratify the trustees appointed by the executive. A meeting that will not take place, according to sources from Junts, until approximately March. Then the current members of the foundation will still have to accept her as a trustee and, subsequently, elect her president, if appropriate. Some see a desired slowdown in the procedure, while those around the foundation, which until now belonged to Democrats, downplay the situation. In fact, they assure that reforms have had to be made to the statutes – changing Democrats to Junts – and, although he is not yet president of the foundation, they have invited Borràs to talk about the strategic plan at the next meeting.

Whatever the case, Borràs's fit will not be without difficulties. To start with, there are 14 trustees who come from the time of Democrats. The former president of Junts would like to renew the members of the foundation with other names linked to different sectors of the independence movement. "She wants a transversal board of trustees," say sources familiar with her intentions. According to some sources, she would also like to fit into the structure of the foundation - but not into the board of trustees - people she trusts, such as Aurora Madaula, although those close to her decline to comment on this idea. For the moment, the foundation is chaired by Jordi Mas and the machinery is run by the executive director Daniel Planàs, who is Castellà's closest confidant.

Sources close to the current foundation are open to expanding the number of members of the board of trustees – but not to changing them – in order to introduce other sensibilities close to Borràs. However, according to these sources, the number can only be increased to 20 members, so the current trustees would maintain the majority. It remains to be seen how these two different perspectives are resolved: between the members who already run the foundation and the will of Borràs.

Legal doubts

But in all this process, Borràs may find another stumbling block: the protectorate of foundations, the public-administrative body dependent on the Generalitat that is responsible for supervising them, may pose problems to his appointment. At the end of the year, A government report already warned that those disqualified for crimes against property, the socio-economic order or forgery cannot be trustees of a foundation, according to the Catalan Civil Code. Borràs was convicted of document forgery and disqualified from holding public office and last week the Supreme Court began to review her case in an appeal. However, article 332.3 of the Civil Code of Catalonia does not clarify whether a person convicted of these crimes, but without a final sentence, can also be a trustee of a foundation. In response to questions from the ARA, the Ministry of Justice remains uncompromising: "The department cannot make assessments of future scenarios. The General Directorate of Law, Entities and Mediation assesses each case when it formally and positively receives any request." In any case, in a few weeks it will be known whether the Supreme Court makes the sentence final or accepts the appeal of Borràs's defense.

What do the experts say? Three sources consulted by the ARA believe that, although the law does not say so, a guarantee-based reading of the legislation should lead to the interpretation that, until there is a final judgment, a person with a disability should be able to be an employer. The expert in financial and tax law and professor at the UB, Maria Dolors Torregrossa, stresses that this is the position that is most in line with the Constitution: "The presumption of innocence prevails," she says. Legal sources from the Catalan Coordinator of Foundations hold the same view. The expert Fernando Pindado, researcher at the Institute of Government and Public Policies of the UAB (IGOP-UAB), also agrees.

Sources from Junts agree with this interpretation and add that, if a final ruling were to be issued, other formulas could be used to give Borràs a leading role in the foundation; whether as academic director or another role in the board of trustees that would avoid a possible final disqualification. They give the example of Raül Romeva, who until December was president of the ERC Irla Foundation despite being definitively disqualified by 1-O: resigned after the Government's report on the foundation's patrons. However, Romeva has continued at Irla as spokesperson for the entity.

Not registered in the Catalan census

In its report, the only thing that the Justice Ministry pointed out about the Democrats Foundation (now Junts) was that it is not included in the census that the Catalan legal system provides to guarantee transparency in political foundations. Registration in this census is not mandatory, according to sources from the Justice Ministry consulted by ARA. Neither is, for example, the Commons Foundation, the Common Sense Foundation - those of the other main Catalan parties are. However, whether registered or not, the foundations of political parties have specific transparency obligations. If the parties on which they depend receive subsidies, their accounts are audited by the Court of Auditors. In the case of the Democrats Foundation, it has not undergone this examination because the parent party had not received it.