The lawyers of the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, They have asked the judge who investigates the subsidies to related entities to file the case before “the absence of irregularities” and “the correction in the administrative processing of the files”, as well as for “the absolute lack of direct or indirect intervention” in the same of the mayor rather than in the final act of approval, adopted “unanimously” in the commission The lawyers underline in their brief, to which EL PERIÓDICO has had access, that the incorporated documents and the statements “prove”, without the need to carry out other investigative steps, that the facts “do not constitute a crime of any kind “.
The Court of Instruction number 21 of Barcelona summoned to declare Colau as accused on March 4, after admitting the complaint filed by the Association for Transparency and Democratic Quality in which he denounced the subsidies granted by the Barcelona City Council to various related entities, including the DESC Observatory – the mayor worked before entering politics-, the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) -of which he was the spokesperson and visible head-, Alliance against Energy Poverty either Engineers Sense Frontiers.
The file request argues that both the documentation provided and the statement of the mayor, who denied having given instructions to favor any entity, and, above all, that of the delegated auditor of the city council, Carmen Torres, corroborate that “we are facing facts that have no criminal relevance. The appearance of the latter and the content of the administrative files questioned allow “the conclusion”, according to the lawyers, that “the provision of public funds” specified in these subsidies “has been presided over” by the “succession of administrative acts tending to control ” of that money and to its “correct” destination. This function was carried out, they insist, by the management of the social rights area, complying with the regulations on economic control and the management of public funds.
The public interest of aid
The lawyers describe the intervener’s statement as “broad, detailed, rigorous and professionally solvent” and, in their opinion, “comes to pulverize” all the “incriminating conclusions” collected in the complaint and subsequent writings of the Association for Transparency. Thus they detail that the official explained to the judge that the files of these subsidies “complied with budgetary and financial legality”, while she specified that they have a report of the management of the social services area in which the “exceptionality” of granting these subsidies directly was justified, as the public interest and that the requesting entity is the only one that can carry out this work.
The request for dismissal also highlights that the “observations” made by the intervener on some of these subsidies (it should appear as nominative in the municipal budget and on the possibility that personnel expenses could have a contractual nature) are not “suspensive” in nature, “nor are they a warning of illegality”, as the witness clarified. The intervener denied that these observations “revealed the concurrence of a crime.”
Delegation in management
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In the letter it is noted that Colau denied having benefited the entities and that he recalled that when he arrived at the Barcelona City Council he eliminated the power exercised by previous mayors to grant subsidies directly, asking that this power be delegated to the different managements. “There is no evidence in the case, nor has there been any means of evidence that contradicts what was stated by our client, quite the opposite; their statements have been endorsed by the instruction carried out.”
The lawyers also emphasize that “there is an almost absolute identity” between the complaint and the complaint that was filed before the prosecution by another entity (the case was filed). And they add that “some improvement proposals have been implemented” made by the municipal intervention, “such as nominating subsidies” in the budgets or the “convenience” of resorting to competitive bidding files.