The Barcelona Court orders the reopening of the investigation against Ada Colau for subsidizing related entities

• Courts The judge files the case against Ada Colau for subsidies to related entities

Seven months before the municipal elections, the mayor of Barcelona,

, is once again under the Justice magnifying glass.

The Barcelona High Court orders the Barcelona Investigating Court number 21 to reopen the open case against Colau after upholding an appeal from the Association for Transparency and Democratic Quality.

Specifically, the court considers that the investigating judge should further investigate some items that appear in the complaint related to the granting of subsidies to related entities.

The Court of Instruction number 21 of Barcelona closed the case a few months ago, following the request of the Prosecutor's Office, considering that the mayor delegated her functions related to the granting of subsidies and there is no evidence that she gave any instructions in this regard.

However, the procedure was closed despite the fact that the prosecution had requested more evidence, both testimonial and documentary, claiming the presence of City Hall staff as interveners.

That is why the Barcelona Court urges to comply with this request.

In this way, the court must investigate again whether Colau was able to commit the crimes of prevarication, embezzlement of public funds or influence peddling by granting subsidies and public aid to the DESC Observatory, the PAH, the Alliance against Energy Poverty (APE) or Engineers Without Borders (ESF).

The complaint considered that the mayor committed alleged irregularities in the granting of 80 million euros in subsidies by the Barcelona City Council between 2019 and 2020.

Thus, the Consistory allegedly granted aid in an "arbitrary and discretionary manner, without public concurrence", on a recurring basis and without accrediting the public interest in order to finance entities such as the DESC Observatory, the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH), the Alliance against Energy Poverty (APE).

The complaint recalls that Colau and other members of the municipal government team of 'comunes', have maintained "personal and professional ties" prior to occupying the positions that have allowed "the repeated granting of subsidies."

It also denounces that studies and projects have been paid to cooperation entities for the third world that exceeded municipal powers.

court doubts

In its order, the Barcelona Court states that "it cannot be ruled out, at the procedural moment in which we find ourselves, that the aforementioned investigated party may have participated in the commission of criminal offenses for which she is being investigated in this case, and taking into account that the investigation and instruction procedure of the case must be continued".

In addition, they point to Colau, although there could be others involved: "We refer only to that investigated and not in relation to other people, because at the time the appealed order was issued, no others had been investigated, although neither can rule out that they could have participated in the events".

"Note, that from what has been exposed up to here, those who have carried out the management of the subsidy files that are the object of this case, the so-called managing body, could have initially decided to reject the proposals of the beneficiary entities when they they requested for the second time, and following, on a recurrent, reiterated basis, the granting of multi-year grants through the exceptional procedure of direct granting, without competitive competition, and also, later, they could have decided in the same sense, given the "observations" that the Comptroller and the legal adviser of the area had made, already indicated previously; and also the Comptroller herself who, instead of issuing "observations", in our opinion, should have issued "objections"which would have meant the temporary suspension of the procedure, and opened a contradictory process, with a decision of the same by the investigated as Mayor of the Barcelona City Council, without possible delegation, "says the order.

The court also considers that Colau "should have been aware" that entities related to the 'commons' such as Drets, Platform d'Afectats per la Hipoteca, Alliance against energy poverty or enginyeria sense fronteres "would continue to request subsidies on a recurring and repeated basis - after she disassociated herself from the first two -, and that this would take place during her mandate as Mayor, and that it would be carried out through direct concession, that is, without public competitive concurrence, which meant bordering on the materialization of the principles of publicity, transparency, competition, objectivity, equality and non-discrimination that should ordinarily govern such subsidies, which occurred from 2016 to 2020, both inclusive,since it was not until 2021 and 2022 that they appeared as nominative subsidies in the Budget of the Barcelona City Council, these principles being clearly internalized by the investigated party, since in its mandate, as we have indicated, direct concession subsidies were reduced under of the exceptional assumption

The order adds that "such form of granting occurred repeatedly with the approval of the Government Commission that she presided over, in which instead of abstaining from the first decision of that governing body of said local corporation, or inform the members of said commission that, at least in appearance, there could be a conflict of interests, which would have entailed a more in-depth examination of the circumstances of the aforementioned concessions by the remaining members of said Commission, taking into account that Due to the volume of decisions that it must adopt, such members could hardly realize the illegality of the decisions they adopted, especially when the file contained the "observations" already consigned (when in our opinion they should be "objections"of the Comptroller) and the legal adviser of the Management of Social Rights".

"Thus, this court considers that there are sufficient elements not to rule out their participation in the facts of the case that could constitute a crime, mainly prevarication, if the commission of criminal offenses is finally confirmed throughout this procedure," he concludes. the car that reopens the investigation against the mayor of Barcelona.

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