The Superior Court of Justice of Madrid has confirmed the order of costs to the PP of Madrid for its complaint against Carlos Sánchez Mato and Celia Mayer in the so-called Open tennis case, in which the former councilors of Ahora Madrid were acquitted. The PP had appealed the costs corresponding to the three defendants who were imposed from the Provincial Court of Madrid on the PP of José Luis Martínez Almeida –current mayor of Madrid– and maintains that the ‘popular’ acted “recklessly”. The TSJM, however, partially upholds the appeal of the PP and exempts them from having acted in “bad faith” on the understanding that for this it would have to be shown that the PP maintained the accusation in order to persecute the defendants, sitting them on the bench, even though he knows that they have not committed any crime.
The court considers “proven” the facts declared in the ruling of the provincial court that acquitted Sánchez Mato and Mayer, such as that their behavior was “scrupulous and responsible in the performance of the public functions for which they had been appointed.” The magistrates maintain that the PP acted “recklessly” and defends that they had “an illogical stubbornness” despite the “inconsistency of the alleged prosecution evidence, not paying attention to relevant data that excluded their criminal relevance.”
The proven facts of the Provincial Court established that the exediles acted because there were “founded and reasonable doubts” about the legality of these contracts, and that they acted “with the sole purpose of protecting public interests.” A 106-page resolution that described as “sincere and convincing” the statement of the three defendants against the accusations of the Popular Party. An accusation that, in the case of Celia Mayer, was so “generalist” that it caused the current adviser “defenselessness”.
The legal case investigated the external legal reports that both commissioned as senior officials of Madrid Destino and that supported a complaint before the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office against the Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón City Council for the contracts he signed with Madrid Trophy Promotion (MTP). According to the PP’s complaint, which was dismissed outright, there was a crime in the commissioning of two external reports to denounce the aforementioned alleged criminal irregularities in the agreement signed by the Madrid City Council at the time of Gallardón.
Both the decision to prepare reports on these contracts with the MTP company and the hiring of external legal advisors for which the PP accused of crimes of prevarication and embezzlement, the Madrid Court considered that they were justified by the economic dimension of the matter. Not doing anything as the PP defended in its complaint, say the judges, would have meant “turning one’s back and submissively accepting the correctness of the entire process.”
The Superior Court now ratifies all proven facts and therefore maintains the costs of the three defendants (the former councilors and also Ana Varela, the then CEO of the Madrid Destino municipal company). It exempts the PP, notwithstanding the procedural bad faith.
