The replacement of the judge of the health contracts delays the investigation that affects the Government of Andalusia

Judge Javier Santamaría, who until now led the investigation into the emergency contracts of the Andalusian Health Service (SAS) between 2020 and 2024 for an alleged crime of prevarication, will leave the Investigative Court number 13 of Seville. The position to occupy the ownership of this judicial body went out to competition and, due to seniority, it will be for the current head of the Family Court number 23 of Seville, José Antonio Gómez, as announced this Tuesday Radio Seville.

Gómez would take office when the BOE publishes the obtaining of the position, from which point he will have eight days to complete the replacement, which will surely generate a certain delay in the investigation of the case, which Santamaría had accelerated in recent years. weeks following the letter from the delegates of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the summons as investigators of the last three managers of the Andalusian Health Service (SAS), who were ordered to appear during the month of November.

Santamaría, until now, had requested documentation from the Court of Accounts, the General Intervention of the Junta de Andalucía and also from the SAS, at the request of the Anti-Corruption prosecutors, who on November 11 sent their letter requesting the carrying out of several proceedings. of investigation, which the court had assumed to determine the facts under investigation, which José Antonio Gómez must now take up.

The judge demanded from the Andalusian Government the file approved by the Government Council on October 6, 2020, in which the prior inspection of certain expenses, organs and health services – including the controversial emergency contracts – was replaced by permanent financial control , that is, post-hoc audits. The Board, as this media has reported, withdrew prior control of the contracts by hand, appealing to the “maturity” of the Health managers charged today.

Let us remember that the judicial case now underway reproduces, point by point, the investigation initiated more than a year ago by elDiario.es Andalucía on the contracts awarded by the Board to private clinics, taking refuge in the exceptional legal framework of the pandemic when it was already repealed.