In September 2017 it was three months since I took my minutes as a Councilman due to the withdrawal of No 1 from the Citizens Totana party list and that is when I received the proof of payment that I attached to the attention of the Municipal Political Group.
Group that should never have been constituted under that name but as a Mixed Group by not obtaining enough representatives or the necessary votes.
From the moment of taking my minimum act, the City Council should have stopped entering anything in the name of this political group.
When I qualified as a Councilor "not ascribed" to any political group, they no longer had the right to these subsidies.
On the other hand, on October 9, 2017, I asked the Mayor to form the Mixed Group, waiving the subsidies.
This request is denied to me with the argument that I was expelled from the Ciudadanos party in September 2015. My request to form the Mixed Group was not because now, I have no "right" to intervene at the same time in the plenary sessions, I do not have "right" to a physical place to work in the City Council and therefore I do not have access to the information in the same time and form as the rest of the Councilors in equality as the law makes it impossible to consult the intranet from the City Council.
All these limitations violate my fundamental rights as a public political office, art.
23.3 of the Spanish Constitution.
Please bring up the STS of 11/05/2007, which states: "(...) It should be noted that our organization has opted for the corporate organization of corporate work, establishing for this purpose the obligatory assignment of all Councilor or Provincial Deputy to municipal group, constituting the mixed group those that are not integrated in any other, in this sense, for example, STS of December 17, 2001. It can and must affirm with total rotundity, that it is the right of every councilor or provincial deputy to be part of a Political Group in the legally established terms, and that this is part of the proper status of the position, and that their ignorance violates the fundamental right recognized by Article 23 of the Spanish Constitution, placing them in a situation of inequality in the performance of its representative functions with respect to the remaining members of the Corporation (...) ".
the LRBRL of 11/1999, of April 21 already made clear the own independent entity of the political groups with respect to the political parties with which each councilor has concurred to an electoral process.
With regard to this question, the one concerning the independent entity of the political groups with respect to the political parties with which each councilor has attended the electoral process, the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, in particular that contained in its sentences of 28 June and November 29, 1990, it is clear:
[...] it is not possible to confuse political group or municipal group [...] with political party [...] the resource of appeal incurs an error when equating representatives of political group and political party [...].
From this derives the direct null influence that, with respect to the local corporations, the political parties have in terms of their internal and corporate functioning.
When the political participation rights regulated by the laws are directed, either to the councilors individually, or to the municipal political groups, but not to the political parties, and this, because they are the elected representatives and not the political or electoral formations , who hold the exclusive ownership of the position in representation of the electoral body, not the political formations from which they come.
The political groups are part of the complementary organization of the local entities, within which we can define them as collegiate bodies of associative and political nature and necessary in the municipal organization and, therefore, for internal organizational purposes, independent of the parties politicians, coalitions, federations or groups with which its members attended the electoral process, and whose only function is to channel the actions of the members of the corporation that, for the purposes of their corporate actions, must act through them, for the better functioning of the governing bodies, this without prejudice, of course, of the functions and powers that the legislation of local regime attributes to the councilors individually.
Of all the above I do not know, what is not understood by the local government and others outside or agrees to erudite interpretations in the plenary sessions.
But I am not a transfuga and the figure of the Councilor "not ascribed" is created to enforce the will of the citizens manifested in the ballot box and for that reason I take the act of Councilman denying the Central Electoral Board itself the resources of the Citizen party in Madrid , What's going on here?.
What should my situation be within this Corporation?
As the Independent Councilor to not have political affiliation.
That for that there exists in the electoral law the figure of the independent candidate and the Mixed Group.
So the issue of these improper payments and the minutes on the matter of the Local Government Board, I am not surprised at all seeing the operation carried out by this City Council.
When I am aware of these payments, I inform the Councilor of the Treasury, the Secretary General and the Treasury.
The answer of all was: "they are payments derived from arrears of when that political group did exist (...)".
In the Governing Board of March 28 last was considered an "error" and based on art.
77 of Law 47/2003, of November 26, General Budgetary, which regulates undue payments, now come to be corrected.
What was left then were "arrears" or is it an "error"?
Because when I communicated it, they had not yet fallen into the continuation of subsidies to a non-existent political group.
Apart from everything, is that none of these amounts had been justified since the constitution of that political group, (two years since 2015).
This is what I reported in September 2017.
October 20, 2017 is when this group is asked to "cover the file" and never better said to justify all the amounts.
Logically Citizens Totana has not been able to justify expenses of anything to the City, among other things because those amounts have not spent.
But he has not fulfilled his accounting obligation either.
The bank itself has charged commissions for account liquidation.
I guess the € 190 is bank charges.
Why ask to justify a money out of time that they know is in the account ?.
They have gone back to go through the "lining of the seat" the Municipal Organic Regulation that they themselves approved in 2015. As in the formation of the political groups, the rights of the Aldermen, the celebration of the plenary in the middle of the legislature to give accounts to the totaneros, what is or what is not a motion, etc, etc, etc, etc and etc.
Article 70 of the Municipal Organic Regulation of the City of Totana says about the political group: "(...). It will be provided, with charge to the Budget, an annual economic allocation for its operation that will have two components: One fixed for all groups and another variable depending on the number of councilors. "
And that this Councilman does not find out that you lack anything.
I would miss more.
Follow the article: "The Municipal Groups will be obliged to justify the annual subsidy within the First Trimester of the year after it is collected." The non-justification consisting of a report and accounting extract, accompanied by the certified invoices, will entail the loss of the right and the refund. of unjustified amounts. "
"The Municipal Groups must keep a specific accounting of said subsidy that will always be available to the Corporation and will be justified before it, upon request to the Plenary by Municipal Group or at the request of the Mayor's Office (...)
Why did not they stop granting subsidies to this political group in the first quarter of 2017 as Art.70 marks if the subsidies delivered during 2016 were not justified because they were owed in arrears ?, or are we going now? interpret "if the year starts to run from the collection or if we talk about the Chinese calendar and we are not in 2017 ?.
I hope that if the legislature ends and there are still subsidies left to collect from others, do not accumulate them as well.
In Spain we have so many legislations at all levels that one can afford the luxury of taking the right one to justify the breach of the one that has not interested to comply without disheveled.
Fortunately, the money has not "flown".
We have the "historical memory" very long for some issues and too short for others.
Let this City Council with these functions leave believe that it is because they do not remember and issues such as the accounting procedure of the Court of Auditors in July 2014 that forced them to return between PP, PSOE, IU and MIXED, the amount of 113,251, € 34
Have they returned everything?
The Court of Auditors then figured € 189,477.13 for the damage caused.
I say that the damage continues to exist because the payment of these subsidies is justified or not.
But for the taxpayer totanero since they come directly from your pocket.
If the party Citizens and the others did not receive subsidies, these problems would be saved and, above all, there would be more money for other more urgent tasks.
Look at the part that Citizens of my two-year term would have to go to pay part of the ambulance.
But remember for the next budgets deduct it from the game of subsidies to parties.
I the printer's ink, the folios and other expenses derived from the charge, I pay them with what I charge for going to the plenary session and I still have enough.
But it is already.
That some of those directly responsible for past "errors" in justifying subsidies before the Court of Accounts get them out of their "errors", even falling the complainants themselves by "ready" and use the Court of Accounts as a weapon for revenge between matches.
That these, continue as public political positions, impassive to the gesture and had not resigned or demanded his resignation, when the facts are known in the procedure by accounting scope of the Court of Accounts of July 2014. It is to seriously study what happens with the Spanish policy at the local, regional and national levels.
The Council of Ministers authorized in February the granting of the subsidies that annually the State grants to the political parties with representation in the Congress of Deputies for its ordinary operation, for an amount of 52,704,140 euros.
The distribution is identical to that of 2017, since from one year to the next there have been no general elections.
The distribution is as follows: PP 17,451,237.57- PSOE 10,803,159.91 - United We can 7,129,411.27 - Citizens 6,347,759.59 - In Comú / Podem 1,889,910.80 Commitments / We can 1,447,535 , 12 - ERC 1,405,973.82 - PSC 1,196,366.76 - Convergence / PDeCAT 1,131,278.64 - In Tide 775,513.54 - PNV 684,159.28 - PP + PAr 682,195.67 - PSOE + NC 483,337.79 - PP + Forum 466,978.61 EH / Bildu (ETA) 379.174,21 - UPN + PP 261,846.58 - CC-PNC 168,300.84.
These grants are for you to spend the year without any problems in Madrid, which is very expensive.
Salaries apart.
Now add an average, downwards, of about € 30,000 per year among 8,191 municipalities.
There are another € 245,730,000 per year in subsidies only to parties, separate salaries.
It would be necessary to quantify the autonomic governments, electoral processes, security expenses, etc, etc ... Are they deducting because there is no money for pensions?
The political parties in Spain are a ruin.
In 2012, they received subsidies worth 209 million;
but as of January 2013 they maintained debts with credit institutions for a total of 237 million.
If they were a company, they would already be bankrupt long ago and if they were a family, they would be evicted.
The Independent Councilor
D. Juan C. Carrillo Ruiz.
