Opposition threatens legal action if Parliament fails to suspend MPs

Cs party critical of deal by pro-independence parties on Supreme Court ruling and says government plan "ignores half of Catalans"

Cs MP José María Espejo-Saavedra with party spokesperson Carlos Carrizosa on September 25 2018 (by Guillem Roset)
Cs MP José María Espejo-Saavedra with party spokesperson Carlos Carrizosa on September 25 2018 (by Guillem Roset) / ACN

ACN | Barcelona

September 25, 2018 07:35 PM

The deputy vice president of the Catalan chamber has threatened the parliament bureau with legal action and called for it to reconsider accepting the agreement reached by the main pro-independence parties on implementing a Supreme Court ruling ordering the suspension of jailed and exiled Catalan MPs.

José María Espejo-Saavedra, from the main unionist Ciutadans party (Cs), warned that if the court's ruling to suspend the MPs is not implemented, then his party would "look into beginning criminal proceedings" against the bureau for the "possible offense of disobedience."

Since Spain's top court ordered in July that MPs prosecuted over last year's independence bid should not be able to vote in the chamber during their trial, the pro-independence parties in government have struggled with how to go about implementing the ruling.

Yet on Tuesday, the JxCat and ERC pro-independence parties announced they had reached a deal to refer the issue to a parliamentary advisory body before debating it in Parliament.

Parties take sides

Espejo-Saavedra compared the head of the parliament bureau, who was instrumental in the agreement, to his predecessor, Carme Forcadell, who is also being prosecuted. "I think the Parliament president, Roger Torrent, is following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Carme Forcadell, and we know how Forcadell's bureau ended up," he said.