The until now Dean of the College of Architects (COAM) and one of the candidates to revalidate the position in the elections of the institution on May 27, Sigfrido Herráez, has announced that he will resort to the courts after the president of the electoral table has informed him that he will reject his candidacy by considering that “there has been no impartiality” and yes “nepotism” in the decision by depriving him, in addition, of a constitutional right.
Herráez believes that in this decision there has been no impartiality because the president of the Electoral Table, Luis de la Rica, is a political uncle of the woman of the rival candidate, Jesús San Vicente. This circumstance led one of the members to request De la Rica to abstract when ruling on the validity of the candidacies in a writing writing presented to the College. And not only that, he wrote a letter exposing the situation in the face of the “suspicion that he could make non -impartial decisions that cloud the electoral process.” Herráez has warned that he will undertake judicial actions as of Monday, when Luis de la Rica is expected to proclaim the candidacies officially in which, predictably, only Jesus San Vicente will be given only as the one of Jesus San Vicente, having ruled out that of Herráez.
The up to the Dean of the College has expressed to the reason that it will begin two processes: one criminal, against the president of the electoral table, “for ignoring the three legal reports that we present and that they endorse that I can be a candidate without explanation of any kind.” It will also request precautionary measures on the process, with which a judge will have to determine whether the elections are suspended or delayed.
Similarly, he has pointed out that “it has not been taken into account, as in the two previous elections, the advisor of the Bar Association”, as has happened in the two previous elections. Thus, “the president of the table has summoned us next Monday at 7:00 p.m. to proclaim the candidacy of his nephew,” he lamented.
The dispute has to do with a matter of government times. The Statutes of the official College of Architects foresee that the mandate of the Governing Board will be three years and can only be chosen a maximum of two mandates, that is, six years. Herráez has been in charge of the institution for four and a half years throughout two legislatures. The first was a year and a half, the time that completed the mandate of his predecessor, Belén Hermida, who resigned after a motion of censure in 2020. Herráez appeared again to the elections and was re -elected to hold the position he has been holding these last three years. That is why he considers that he would be able to govern at least another year and a half more to complete the six -year limit that marks the statutes.
His rival, Jesús San Vicente, makes a different interpretation of the statutes, who believes that article 30.5 makes it clear that “the candidacies are only considered not complete in the event that a person agrees in the last year of legislature.” He holds Herráez agreed in the last year and a half, which would leave him out of the process.
Herráez’s candidacy presented to the electoral table an opinion of the law firm of José Antonio García Trevijano, about the temporal limits that affect the electoral candidacies in which he gives the reason for the performance of an incomplete mandate “because there is already legislation in this regard.” And he puts as an example several sentences that would have proved the people who have seen in situations similar to that of Herráez, in which justice has failed in his favor. The lawyer’s report concludes that “it is clearly eligible who has played – by replacement – the last year and a half of a legislature, plus the three years of the second because, although the year and a half is computer, six years will not be reached, but only four and a half years.” Otherwise, it would be “law fraud.”
San Vicente questions that Herráez has requested two opinions and an opinion to lawyers of recognized prestige to support his candidacy at the particular level when two of them are hired by the COAM to resolve legal conflicts of the Professional College, which sows doubts about their impartiality, according to it. And he emphasizes another matter: the fact that Herráez presented «precipitously“ those legal guarantees that would support their eligibility to the electoral table, «it is an attempt of ethically inadmissible coercion and corruption, since it should only be pronounced once the objective fact of presentation of candidacies. The rules must be the same for everyone ». Hence he considers that Herráez “is playing with the marked cards.”
San Vicente also believes that Herráez “has focused on Coam to an unnecessary crisis” and closets “attempt of inadmissible coercion” towards the electoral table, which until Monday will not make public, in a official way, whether Herráez may or may not appear to the elections (although he claims to have received a letter from the table stating that he is ruled out as a candidate) with the announcement of legal actions against the president of the electoral table. “Herráez is abusing his position to exert pressure by sending letters with instructions to the president of the table and threatening letters when he has not going to follow his guidelines.” He adds that the accusations of nepotism «are false. The statement that the president of the Electoral Table is my uncle attempts against the honor of both and I will reserve the right to take legal actions, ”he says.
Other members of the Board of Representatives have manifested in similar terms and have criticized “the ethically inadmissible pressures” of Sigfrido Herráez in the process. “The courts leave when there are firm internal resolutions,” they say.
