The Court of Instruction number 1 of Las Palmas has decided to “dismiss the complaint filed by David de la Hoz and Pedro San Ginés” against two of the heads of the General Directorate of Public Function of the Government of the Canary Islands, the Minister of Health of the Cabildo of Lanzarote and the president of the Corporation, for having recognized Juan Manuel Sosa (career official) the situation of exclusive dedication to the position he holds in the Cabildo, for which he receives the same salary he received in his position as an official of the Canary Islands Health Service.
In a recent order that was notified to the parties this Wednesday, the judge concludes that the payments that the plaintiffs consider irregular are based on administrative resolutions of bodies that have their headquarters in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, so “in accordance with the provisions of article 313 of the Law of Civil Procedure, the dismissal of the same is appropriate because this Court is not competent to instruct it.”
The aforementioned legal article provides that “the complaint will be dismissed when the facts on which it is based do not constitute a crime, or when it is not considered competent to instruct the summary of the same”. In this case, the judge does not rule on the reported facts, because he considers that he is not competent to do so, which is why the order itself repeatedly warns that the alleged illegality of the reported facts would always be “according to the plaintiffs' thesis”, which the Court does not assume at any time but refers to it for the purpose of determining whether it is competent to resolve on its admission for processing.
No defendants
The judicial resolution known this Wednesday denies what was stated by the councilors of the Canarian Coalition in the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Pedro San Ginés and David de la Hoz, who assured in a press conference that both the Minister of Health and the president of the Cabildo had been charged by the Court of Las Palmas for alleged crimes of malfeasance and embezzlement.
The truth is that the Court had not ruled on the facts reported by the plaintiffs and limited itself at the time to initiating proceedings to determine in advance which court would be competent to decide on the matter, concluding that according to the plaintiffs' own “thesis” the facts that are narrated would have taken place in Santa Cruz de Tenerife because the payments that motivate the complaint “are based on the resolutions issued by the General Directors of Public Function”.
San Ginés awaiting trial for false accusation
After learning of the judicial decision, the Minister of Health of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Juan Manuel Sosa, recalled that “at all times I warned that it was not true that there was any accusation against me or against the president”, but that “I was not surprised that San Ginés presented that complaint manipulating reality because he is a man who is accused by the Prosecutor's Office of filing false complaints against innocent people and maintaining them for many years with false testimony in the courts to attack his political rivals, for which he is being asked for several years in prison.”
The Minister of Health of the Cabildo recalled that "public officials have the right to receive the same salary they receive in their job when they hold public office, a matter on which there is no doubt, insisting that all these actions of San Ginés are part of the pressure attempts that Sosa has suffered to leave his position as councilor and overthrow the government of the Cabildo by illicit means."
Sosa has also pointed out that his lawyers are studying “the exercise of legal actions against San Ginés for false accusation that in the case of David de la Hoz could be extended to an alleged crime of subsidy fraud since it is known that he receives allowances from the Parliament of the Canary Islands for residing in Lanzarote when it is public and notorious that he has lived in Las Palmas for years.”
