The legal adviser to Manilva Town Hall, A.M.C., has been convicted as the person criminally responsible for a offence of forgery of an official document and sentenced to three years in prison, with the additional penalty of special disqualification from the right to stand for election for the duration of the custodial sentence, a fine of six months at a daily rate of €20, and special disqualification from public employment or office for three years. He must also pay compensation of €3,000 to the dismissed employee E.R.N. for the moral damage suffered, plus the corresponding statutory interest under Article 576 of the LEC (Civil Procedure Act), with Manilva Town Hall declared subsidiarily liable under civil law. He has likewise been ordered to pay half of the court costs, including, in that proportion, those of the private prosecution party.
The events date back to February 2012, when the mayor, Antonia Muñoz, decided to end the employment relationship of the worker E.R.N., who was employed as an administrative assistant in the cleaning department. The dismissal took place one day before this worker, a member of the PSOE, was due to be appointed trade union representative.
On 13 September 2013 the oral hearing was held in that court. In support of the Town Hall’s position, its lawyer submitted a photocopy of a document dated 1 February 2012, bearing the corporation’s official letterhead and 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», in which Ms R.N. was selected as the municipal employee to be dismissed on the grounds of having the least seniority.
The original document from which the photocopy was made (which has not been located, as it is not attached to the administrative dismissal file, nor has it been found at the Town Hall) was drawn up and signed by the defendant in his capacity as legal adviser to Manilva Town Hall. Its purpose was to prevent the worker’s dismissal from being declared void or unfair for lack of proof of the objective circumstances that justified it. The date on which it was created is not recorded, although it was after the dismissal decree (15 February 2012). Despite this, the document was given 1 February 2012 as its date of issue, so that it would appear to predate the mayor’s decree.
An appeal in cassation may be lodged against this ruling by Section 9 of the Provincial Court of Málaga before the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court.
Source: Cadena Ser
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