The Court of Instruction number four of San Cristóbal de La Laguna has elevated to the Second Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court a reasoned exposition in a separate piece on the alleged involvement of Senator Fernando Clavijo Batlle, in the so-called Reparos case, when he was mayor of La Laguna, as reported by the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC).
The head of the Court of Instruction number four of La Laguna, the magistrate judge Ana Serrano-Jover González, has elevated to the Second Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court a reasoned exposition in a separate piece on "Clavijo's possible responsibilities for extending municipal contracts against the criteria of the comptroller in multiple files."
Clavijo was mayor of La Laguna between 2008 and 2015, then president of the Government of the Canary Islands from 2015 to 2019. He is currently a senator by designation of the Parliament of the Canary Islands, as well as secretary general of the Canarian Coalition.
His national jurisdiction determines that only the Supreme Court could investigate him in the event that the writing of the magistrate of La Laguna is estimated.
The judge continues with her reasoned exposition to the Supreme Court and adds the criteria of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, which appreciates indications of prevarication in the mayor's decision to give continuity "repeatedly to expired public service contracts, some of them millionaires, lifting by decree the legality objections of the General Intervention".
The complaint of the Reparos case was promoted by Santiago Pérez, who is currently responsible for urban planning in the municipal government group of La Laguna and regional senator proposed by the PSOE.
The magistrate explains in her reasoned exposition that she has already practiced "the documentary, testimonial and expert evidence and only Clavijo's statement would remain as a diligence."
In the years from 2011 to 2014, Fernando Clavijo saved objections from the Intervention "repeatedly and without being subject to the administrative procedure", according to the indications exposed by the judge. The reasoned exposition details, one by one, "the approximately eighty decrees of the mayor in those years in which the objections of the Intervention were lifted."
According to the detailed exposition, they range from contracts for cleaning schools and municipal dependencies for 7 million euros to leisure workshops (1.8 million), social services for home help (3.3 million), extracurricular activities (500,000 euros) or maintenance of gardens (one million euros).
The then mayor, before dictating "each and every one" of the decrees resolving the objections, "had total and absolute knowledge that untimely extensions with retroactive effects were taking place, as well as authorizations for continuity of the provision of the service", in some cases with durations of up to two and eight years.
The magistrate understands that Clavijo "was aware that he could be causing damage to the municipal coffers" and points out that in the plenary sessions of the City Council there were councilors who expressed their concern because the Intervention had raised objections to up to 25 percent of the municipal budget.
The instructor's criterion is that the facts may constitute "a continuing crime of administrative prevarication", which entails special disqualification for employment or public office and for the exercise of the right to passive suffrage from 9 to 15 years.
