Judge Rafael Lis, who has been suspended since this Tuesday for a very serious offense in the exercise of his office, continued to make key decisions, regardless of the Prosecutor's criteria, at least until the day before being removed from the Court. In the latest order that La Voz has had access to, dated this Sunday, April 29, the judge ends the investigation of a case opened two years ago and initiates the procedure to bring it to trial, despite the fact that the Public Prosecutor's Office requested last January that it be dismissed as they found no evidence of a crime.
In his order, Lis orders the initiation of the Abbreviated Procedure against the former president of the Cabildo, Manuela Armas, and against the former councilors Carlos Espino, Juan Félix Eugenio, Ramón Bermúdez and Juan Carlos Becerra, for an alleged crime of prevarication by granting territorial qualification to a gas station promoted by Combustibles Canarios SA, owned by Honorio García Bravo, on the road from Playa Blanca to Femés.
The facts were reported two years ago by the controversial Jiménez de Asúa Association of Jurists (AJJA), which has been removed from other legal cases, among other things for acting in "bad faith". In addition, this association has shared interests and arguments with defendants in corruption cases such as Luis Lleó and Juan Francisco Rosa, which has led the Prosecutor's Office to compare it to a "Trojan horse with illegitimate interests". However, Lis did allow this association to appear in cases opened in his Court, including this one whose investigation he has just closed.
The same association requested bail for Espino
The Jiménez de Asúa Association of Jurists is also involved in another case of Lis against Carlos Espino for his management of the Tourist Centers, and it was the one who requested that a bond be imposed on the former councilor. In this case, Lis granted AJJA's request on April 18, imposing a bond of 1.5 million euros on Espino. And he made this decision when he already knew that he was going to be removed from the Court imminently, since the Supreme Court had just rejected the appeal he filed requesting precautionary measures to prevent the sanction imposed on him by the General Council of the Judiciary from being executed.
In the disciplinary file that gave rise to that sanction, he was considered responsible for a very serious offense, having continued to intervene in a case in which he had been challenged, as there were doubts about his impartiality. The reason for these doubts was the link between the judge and Juan Francisco Rosa, since the magistrate's wife worked for this businessman, who was using the proceedings instructed by Lis in his defense in the Unión case.
Now, the judge has already begun to serve that sanction and will be out of the Court for six months, suspended from employment and salary, but before he has made two key decisions in two cases with common denominators: that the Association of Jurists affiliated with the interests of Rosa exercises the accusation and that Carlos Espino appears as investigated, who among other causes was the complainant in the Unión case and the Yate case. In addition, the last order is dated on Sunday and when he already knew that he had one day left in the Court, given that the TSJC last week set the date for the start of the execution of the sanction, setting it for this May 1.
The Prosecutor's Office already refuted the judge's arguments
Regarding the case whose investigation he has decided to close, the judge's criteria clash with that of the Prosecutor's Office, which last January requested that the proceedings be dismissed as it did not appreciate evidence of a crime in the facts reported by AJJA. However, in his order, Rafael Lis relies on a report by the Cabildo's lawyer, Joana Macías, who had spoken out against granting territorial qualification to that gas station in 2008. Thus, he concludes that the five investigated -four of them as members of the government group and Juan Carlos Becerra as councilor of the opposition- approved granting that permit "knowing of its injustice", as they had a negative report.
In contrast, the Public Prosecutor's Office had already pointed out last January that Joana Macías' report was not binding, as she herself stated in the Courts, when she was summoned as a witness in this case. In that judicial statement, the official explained that it was a "complex issue" and that "the meaning of the report was dismissive, but that the planner had to decide", because it was about interpreting the planning, which did not expressly order this type of infrastructure.
"She noted that at the time of issuing her report, she was not aware of the existence of any regulations that explicitly regulated the number of gas stations that should be per population density or per distance", the Public Prosecutor's Office emphasized in its writing requesting the dismissal of the case. In addition, she recalled that the lawyer herself added that "a decision taken contrary to her report could also be honest or irreproachable, if it was rigorous and studied", as well as that "none of the politicians involved in the Governing Council pressured her to change the meaning of her report" and that "in fact, she did not even see them".
"Excludes the commission of any criminal offense"
In the opinion of the Public Prosecutor's Office, the fact that Macías' report was not binding and that it was also an interpretable issue "excludes the commission of any criminal offense". In addition, in its writing, it added other arguments to dismiss the case, reproducing part of the statements made by other Cabildo technicians and by the accused politicians. "The investigated stated that they made the decision, and thus reflected it in the resolution of the territorial qualification file, attending to the remaining reports, which were positive, and with the full conviction, as Carlos Espino pointed out, that even the legal report, considering its previous argumentation, was favorable to the qualification", the Prosecutor's Office pointed out.
Thus, he recalled that Espino "stated, in particular, that he understood that Joana Macías' consideration had nothing to do with the object of the report and was not based on any rule that allowed her to establish that the report was negative, given that there was no rule establishing the maximum density of gas stations per inhabitant or per square kilometer, and given that the previous argumentation was positive".
However, despite that writing from the Public Prosecutor's Office, Judge Lis has not only not dismissed the case but this Sunday decided to close the investigation, opening the period for the accusation writings to be presented, if the parties deem it necessary. However, that order from Lis can still be appealed, both by the investigated and by the Prosecutor's Office.
