The judge of the Court of Instruction number 4 of Arona, Nelson Díaz, agreed the Provisional dismissal of the complaint filed by three councilors from the critical sector against the socialist mayor, José Julián Mena, and the temporary former secretary, Pedro Javier Hernández, by “finding no evidence of the commission of any criminal act”. The complaint for the alleged commission of a crime of prevarication was presented, on January 13, 2021, only by the councilors of the PSOE Dácil León and Juan Sebastián Roque, in addition to the former socialist and current non-attached mayor Luis García.
The reason for this complaint was the withdrawal, by the councilor, of item 3.1 from the agenda of the plenary session held on November 26, 2020, based on a report by the secretary of the Corporation. That point was headed “to account for the transition to non-attached member of mr. mayor president, José Julián Mena Pérez », after his expulsion from the PSOE. The alderman acted based on that report, which stated that he should wait for the resolution of the appeal filed by Mena before his political party. That report, from the day of the plenary session, contradicted the one prepared three days earlier, giving free rein to the alderman’s status as non-assigned because the Municipal Secretary did not record the filing of the appeal against his expulsion from the PSOE by Mena, something which was registered with the Ethics and Guarantee Committee of the National Socialist leadership one day before the plenary session.
The judge endorses the actions of the then secretary and specifies in his order that “the two reports made are fully consistent with each other. The first of them is based on the non-constancy of any resource and the second, on the knowledge of its existence. Nelson Díaz considers it “reasonable” to give time to have a firm ruling on an expulsion that the judge considers was not originally, as it does not adhere to what is established by Law 7/1985 Regulating the Bases of the Local Regime, in its article 73.3.
indifferent and irrelevant
Regarding the withdrawal of the item from the agenda by the mayor “based on the provisions of article 70 of the Municipal Organic Regulation”, his honor does not observe “any vice of illegality, having a favorable legal report, being indifferent and irrelevant, from the criminal point of view, the fact that the aforementioned mayor has never before made use of said power contained in article 70. If what is wanted is to deprive the mayor of Arona of said power, in a certain all-embracing way , what has to be done is to reform said Regulation through legal means».
The event giving rise to the complaint occurred at the moment of maximum tension derived from the rupture of the Socialist Municipal Group of Arona. The dismissal, in June 2020, of Luis García as councilor for Urban Planning split the local government in two (with an absolute majority), with councilors José Luis Gómez, Dácil León, Sebastián Roque, Yurena García, Pura Martín and Elena lining up as opposed to the mayor. Cabello (who are still in the PSOE), in addition to Luis García (expelled from the PSOE and non-attached councilor). All of them argued serious discrepancies in terms of management and internal and external interference that have yet to be clarified.
In his order (before which there is an appeal for reform), Nelson Díaz Frías recalls that José Julián Mena continues to belong to the PSOE because his expulsion was annulled by the judge on September 27, 2021, a final judgment as it was not appealed.
