The president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, has acknowledged that he knew about the Supreme Court's decision revealed this Monday by La Voz, thereby confirming that he has kept it hidden. That decision, issued almost three months ago, rejected the appeals filed by the Water Consortium and Canal de Isabel II and upheld the ruling of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands, which ordered a review of the water award, considering it proven that "surprising alterations" were introduced in the specifications "for the benefit" of this Madrid-based company.
Far from denying that he hid that resolution -just as he hid the TSJC's ruling for half a year, until this media outlet made it public-, what San Ginés has now done in a statement is to try again to downplay this judicial pronouncement and state that he is not going to execute the ruling. "The only novelty is that the appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court," he states in his press release. Even, although it is evident that this lawsuit has remained open and now has a final judgment, the president goes so far as to state that "all judicial procedures are closed or archived" with respect to the award to Canal.
To this end, instead of making public the judicial resolution that proves this statement -which is evident that it does not conform to reality simply in light of the Supreme Court's own decision-, what Pedro San Ginés has sent is a decree signed by his colleague Echedey Eugenio as "president by delegation" of the Water Consortium. In that decree, which is dated three months after the TSJC issued its ruling ordering the review of the water award, Eugenio resolves to "declare the procedure concluded and decree its filing", although obviously a political decree does not have the capacity to file a judicial case, which in fact has continued its course.
Clinging to the agreement he negotiated with Club Lanzarote for them to withdraw
What that decree refers to -which is also signed by the then secretary, Francisco Perdomo, who is accused along with San Ginés in the case for the seizure of the Montaña Roja desalination plant-, is the agreement that the president negotiated with Club Lanzarote, after the Justice annulled the seizure (which was ordered by San Ginés to later hand over those plants to Canal Gestión). In addition to filing lawsuits against that seizure and a complaint against Pedro San Ginés, Club Lanzarote also took the water award to Canal to court. However, when negotiating with the president the agreement to settle the lawsuits for the seizure -and after which the company also withdrew from the criminal case against him-, they agreed to also include a clause by which Club Lanzarote committed to withdraw from this other procedure.
However, the truth is that this agreement did not prevent the ruling of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands from being issued, nor that now that ruling has become final and therefore binding, as it is a matter of public order and not a lawsuit between individuals. However, both in Echedey Eugenio's decree and in San Ginés' statement, they refer to that "withdrawal" of Club Lanzarote to ensure that "the procedure" is archived, when the only thing that a decree can archive is an administrative file of the institution itself, but not a case open in the courts.
"There is nothing to execute since there is no object of the cause", argues San Ginés, who has been repeating this message since last year but who, however, did decide that the Consortium should allocate public funds to file an appeal with the Supreme Court. And he did so despite the fact that, according to him, the procedure is "closed" or "archived" and the appeal "could no longer have consequences".
"To the question of why it was presented if it had no object, I can only answer that it was because the legal services, encouraged by the initial order that in the first instance gave the reason to the Consortium, and considering that the pronouncement of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands was erroneous, decided to present the appeal with the sole purpose of clarifying the legal truth", he adds in his statement. Regarding that "initial order of first instance", it should be remembered that what it did was not "give the reason to the Consortium". In fact, it did not even enter into the merits of the matter, since what it agreed was not to admit Club's lawsuit for a formal reason, in a decision that was later corrected by the TSJC. That is where that ruling arrived that San Ginés could not avoid and that is now final, despite that withdrawal of Club Lanzarote from the lawsuit.
The "legal truth"
In this way, beyond the ways that the president is now trying to open to not execute the sentence, the "legal truth" that he claimed he was seeking with his appeal is the one dictated by the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands and that has been declared final by the Supreme Court when rejecting the appeals.
In that ruling, the Court pointed out that "it is unquestionable that the Consortium ended up making a substantial modification of the governing conditions of the contract award procedure, to the point that the one actually held is radically different from the one that was the object of the initial tender". And those "various and surprising alterations" that, according to the ruling, were introduced during the negotiated procedure -which was the one that was opened after the tender was deserted-, were "for the benefit of the company that was awarded", the Madrid-based company Canal de Isabel II.
For this reason, the TSJC ordered to review the award and also warned that "this controversial action of the Consortium will very difficultly overcome the obstacle posed by the opinion of the Advisory Council". Thus, the ruling pointed out that the review process would end up declaring that contract null and void.