MADRID (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th January, 2020) The election commission of Spain's northeastern Barcelona province has given the Catalan parliament 48 hours to strip Catalan president Quim Torra of his status of a regional lawmaker.
In addition, Spain's central electoral commission (JEC) obliged Catalan parliament speaker Roger Torrent to immediately oust Torra.
Both requests come after Spain's Supreme Court rejected Torra's appeal against the JEC's decision to ban him from holding elected office for disobedience.
It is yet unclear whether Torra will automatically lose the post of regional government head as a result of losing his parliamentary mandate. According to regional law, the Catalan president is elected from the members of the regional parliament.
The law does not specify, however, whether the president must retain his parliamentary mandate throughout their tenure. Now, it is up to the regional legislature to decide whether to oust Torra from the office. In early January, the parliament confirmed the mandate for Torra as the head of the regional government and a regional lawmaker, labeling the JEC's decisions as a "coup."
In December, Catalonia's High Court of Justice barred Torra from holding elected office for 18 months over accusations of disobedience related to his failure to remove pro-independence symbols from government buildings during an election campaign in the spring. The JEC, in turn, ruled to remove Torra's mandate. In early January, the Supreme Court rejected Torra's appeal.
