The Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) has ratified the sentence of 14 years of disqualification imposed on the former mayor of El Tanque (Tenerife) Román Martín (PSOE) for a crime of administrative prevarication in the hiring of workers.
Martín resigned from the Mayor’s Office in July 2021 after the Canarian high court confirmed another sentence of disqualification, in this case of 12 years, for a crime of prevarication in relation to the opening of a nursing home in the municipality.
Now, the TSJC Criminal Chamber has dismissed the appeal filed by the former councilor to the sentence issued by the fifth section of the Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which endorses “in all its extremes.”
As proven facts, it is established that Román Martín acted “with bias” and with “absolute disregard” both for the legality of personnel selection processes, disregarding the principles of publicity, merit, equality and capacity, as well as the reports unfavorable of the secretariat-intervention.
In this way, he proceeded to hire three cleaning workers, a construction worker, a nursing assistant, three home assistants and two socio-cultural animators.
In some cases, he raised objections to the extension of his contracts and several of the decrees that governed them were declared null by contentious-administrative courts.
Regarding the arguments put forward by the defense in its appeal, the Superior Court considers that the sentence is the result of a “rational and coherent evaluation duly motivated”.
Additionally, given the argument of the exceptional nature and urgency of the hiring, the court emphasizes that the former mayor of El Tanque “did not bother” to previously inform the plenary of these hirings but did so once they were formalized, and also raised objections.
Also, several of these workers testified in court that they were told there was an urgent need for them to join immediately.
The room does not appreciate that “alleged urgency and urgent need for these exceptional contracts that should also be limited to sectors and professional categories that are considered a priority or affect the operation of essential public services.”
