The Supreme Court (TS) has acquitted the legal adviser of Manilva Town Hall of forging an official document and procedural fraud, of which he had already been cleared at first instance, in proceedings that began after the dismissal of an employee in February 2012.
Aitor Menoyo was accused of drawing up a report with the aim of preventing the dismissal of a Town Hall employee, an administrative assistant in the cleaning department, from being declared void or unfair.
In its ruling, to which EFE has had access, the Supreme Court points to the lack of a proper defence suffered by the defendant at the trial held at the Provincial Court of Málaga, and stresses that the assessment of the evidence made at that time must be understood «as absolutely void and ineffective, insofar as the lack of defence suffered does not allow it to be understood that the right to a fair trial was upheld».
The judges add that there is no evidence to rebut the defendant’s presumption of innocence and that, in addition, the facts reported do not constitute any offence, since the report in question is «harmless or insignificant and had no bearing whatsoever on the justification for the dismissal».
The proven facts state that, by a decree dated 15 February 2012, the then mayor, Antonia Muñoz, agreed to terminate the employee’s contract, and that the dismissal took place one day before the woman, a PSOE member, was to be appointed union representative.
Following the dismissal, the employee brought a claim against the Town Hall before the labour court, seeking to have the dismissal declared void. The claim was assigned to Social Court number 8 of Málaga.
The trial was held on 13 September 2013, and the Town Hall’s lawyer presented a photocopy of a document entitled «Termination of contract for objective economic and organisational reasons of a permanent employee in the category of administrative assistant in the human resources department, attached to the cleaning department».
According to the ruling, the original document from which the photocopy was made has not been located because it was not attached to the administrative file, but it was signed by the defendant in his capacity as legal adviser.
In January 2014, the labour proceedings ended with a ruling rejecting the employee’s claim, a decision that was upheld by the High Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA) in June 2014.
The Supreme Court also acquits Manilva Town Hall of being subsidiarily liable.
The legal adviser’s lawyer, Oscar Chicharro Arcas, of the firm Chicharro Abogados, told EFE that they are satisfied with the ruling because, although his client «has been subjected to long years of legal wrangling, the Supreme Court has finally done him justice».
We recall that Aitor Menoyo was appointed by decree of the current mayor of Manilva, Jose Manuel Fernández, on 21 August as the Town Hall’s urban planning manager, but a month after his appointment, citing personal reasons, Menoyo resigned from the post.
Compromiso Manilva, the party of Mario Jiménez, the town’s previous mayor, welcomed the news on social media, issuing a press release stating: «A few days ago we reported the appointment by the mayor of Manilva, handpicked and without a selection process, of Aitor Menoyo, who has been convicted since 2022 as the person responsible for an offence of administrative misconduct as a necessary accomplice, with a sentence of 21 months’ special disqualification from any public office or employment», «following the public complaint by Compromiso Manilva a few days ago, and for this reason he has been forced to resign».
