Speaker has five days to strip disqualified MP of seat or face 'legal consequences'

Electoral board issues warning after Parliament votes to appeal decision in Supreme Court

Former MP Pau Juvillà and parliament speaker Laura Borràs (by Rafa Garrido)
Former MP Pau Juvillà and parliament speaker Laura Borràs (by Rafa Garrido) / ACN

ACN | Barcelona

January 27, 2022 06:26 PM

Parliament speaker Laura Borràs has been given five business days to effectively remove disqualified far-left pro-independence CUP MP Pau Juvillà from his seat or "face legal consequences" after the electoral board issued a warning on Thursday.

This comes days after the Parliament agreed to defend his seat with a Supreme Court appeal after all pro-independence parties and anti-austerity CatECP voted in favor of the motion. The Socialists abstained while far-right Vox, center-right Ciudadanos, and the conservative People's Party voted against it. Borràs has also vowed to not take action against Juvillà until there is a Supreme Court ruling. 

The electoral board, an administrative body that supervises elections in Spain, decided to strip Juvillà of his seat a week ago following a High Court ruling in December in which he was found guilty of disobedience for not removing yellow ribbons from his office in the Lleida council during an election period.

Since late 2017, when Catalonia held a vote on independence deemed illegal by Spain, yellow ribbons have come to signal solidarity with the formerly jailed independence leaders as well as those who have moved abroad to avoid prosecution.

Juvillà was barred from public office for 6 months and given a €1,080 fine by the High Court in a decision that was then backed by the electoral board  the Supreme Court, however, is yet to rule on the matter. 

The case against Juvillà

Juvillà's case dates back to the 2019 municipal election period, when Juvillà was a Lleida city council member, and he did not remove yellow ribbons from the CUP office in the town hall. 

Ciudadanos, a center-right party that is staunchly against splitting with Spain and that used to be Catalonia's largest opposition party, lodged a complaint against Juvillà with the Electoral Board for displaying what they described as partisan symbols in a public building during an election period.

Despite this, on April 3, 2019, the then-councilor refused to take them down in an act of defiance that led to disobedience charges. The yellow ribbons were eventually taken down by Mossos d'Esquadra police officers. 

The public prosecutor had requested an 8-month disqualification from public office as well as a €1,440-fine.

Because Juvillà became an MP in the Catalan Parliament following the February 14 elections, the case had to be tried in the High Court. 

Ex-president's yellow ribbon disqualification

Juvillà is not the first politician to face a similar sentence due to yellow ribbons; in fact, former Catalan president Quim Torra was twice charged with disobedience for hanging symbols in solidarity with pro-independence figures from the government headquarters in Barcelona during election campaign periods.

In September 2020, Spain's Supreme Court upheld the December 2019 Catalan High Court ruling disqualifying Torra for 18 months, the first yellow ribbon ruling against him, effectively removing him from office and handing the presidency to then-vice president Pere Aragonès.