The Constitutional Court has overturned the Parliament’s transitional regulations that allowed former Minister Lluís Puig, in Belgium since 2017, to vote electronically throughout last year. The magistrates understand that this decision, which was not based on a reform of the Regulations of the Catalan chamber, affected the rights of other deputies. A resolution that comes a few days before the vote to form a new Parliament Board and with Carles Puigdemont and Puig himself pending being able to vote with the same system.
The first chamber of the Constitutional Court has been studying for several days the appeal presented by the group of Socialistes i Units per Avançar against several agreements of the Parliamentary Board of April 2018. Agreements that approved a transitional regulation for telematic voting and that, in In practice, they allowed Lluís Puig to vote electronically during that period of sessions, until the summer of that year. Puig is one of the members of Carles Puigdemont’s Government who has remained in Belgium since 2017.
These agreements were made in the absence of a reform of the Regulations of the Catalan chamber that has not occurred to date, and according to the chamber this violated the rights of other deputies to exercise their representative functions. In practice, the decision does not have an impact on all the votes that went ahead with the support of Puig, but it does annul the transitional regulations and the authorization for the former councilor to vote remotely.
The Constitutional Court explains that the approval of this now-annulled transitional regulation was “instrumental” so that Puig could vote and avoid “previous pronouncements” of the Constitutional Court itself, but “without a real vocation for generality.” The room understands, with María Luisa Segoviano as speaker, that the situation of “who has voluntarily decided to evade the action of the Spanish criminal jurisdiction and who is subject to a search and arrest warrant is not a valid circumstance to exercise televoting.” .
Key vote on Monday
The Chamber’s Regulations have not been modified since then and on Monday the Parliament will face a key vote after the elections of May 12: the election of a new Board and, with it, a new presidency of the Parliament of Catalonia. Waiting to know how this Constitutional resolution affects the fact that Carles Puigdemont has to exercise televoting from Brussels as he cannot return to Spain without being arrested.
The Table that emerges from Monday’s votes will not only be important for the day-to-day management of the Catalan chamber throughout the legislature. The new president of the Parliament is in charge of proposing the candidate to run for investiture for the presidency of the Generalitat of Catalonia in a debate to be held no later than June 25. As of today, Salvador Illa (PSC) and Carles Puigdemont have run, although the leader of Junts does not have a viable majority because the independence movement fell below 68 deputies.
The independence movement was counting on the fact that the Age Board that will preside over the constitution session of the Parliament on Monday and that will have a pro-independence majority would apply the same now-annulled mechanism so that Puigdemont and Puig could delegate the vote. Who will be able to delegate the vote is the ERC parliamentarian Ruben Wagensberg, who is in Switzerland for the Tsunami Democràtic case, but remains on medical leave, one of the cases that does allow him to delegate the vote.
Source: www.eldiario.es
