He former mayor of El Tanque Román Martín has accepted a sentence of two years and seven months of special disqualification for a continued crime “against civic rights” for having prevented the opposition from accessing public information. This is stated in a ruling from the Provincial Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife whose ruling also imposes costs. The document states that Martín showed his agreement with the accusation and with the requested sentence, and specifies that the sentence disqualifies him “for the exercise of the public office of mayor or any other elective position of the Local Administration, autonomous communities or State Administration.” .
The sentence considers it proven that Román Martín acted “with absolute disregard for current legislation” and that “systematically and persistently, at least between August 2013 and September 2016, he denied opposition councilor Pablo Estévez Gonzalez –and sometimes also to the opposition councilor Faustino Alegría Hernández– access to different documents and information interested by them for the legitimate exercise of their participation functions policy and supervisors of municipal activity.
Martín became Mayor of El Tanque after leading the candidacy of the Socialist Party (PSOE) in 2011. after which he remained in office for ten years. He stopped being mayor following a November 2020 court ruling that disqualified him from employment or public office for twelve years for committing a crime of prevarication in the opening of the mini-residence for the elderly. His problems with Justice did not end there. Subsequently, he was disqualified in 2022, when he was sentenced to fourteen years for several irregular hirings in the 2015-2019 mandate.
Regarding the recent judicial ruling, the ruling highlights that access to public information was prevented in the consultation of the City Council’s contracting files with the entities Solcansa Servicios Sociedad Limitada or La Merced Canary Islandsas well as in relation to the opening file of the day center for the elderly and mini-residence, to the consultation of the decrees and resolutions of the Mayor’s Office, or to obtaining a copy of the minutes of the Government Boards.
A good part of the eight pages of the ruling enumerate in detail the occasions in which Martín denied access to information. It is also noted that the former local councilor omitted from the agenda of the ordinary sessions of the plenary sessions dated June 30 and September 29, 2014; April 27, August 27 and October 29, 2015, and February 25, June 30 and September 29, 2016, the mandatory point to report on the Mayor’s decrees and Mayor’s resolutions resolving objections from the Secretariat – Intervention.
