Chihuahua— The three-month disqualification from holding public office against the former Secretary of Public Service of the previous state government, Mónica Vargas Ruiz, was for cloning file folios to hide a complaint filed in September 2019, for the allegedly irregular acquisition by Javier Corral of the so-called ‘hot land’, with which he expanded his house in Ciudad Juárez.
“We see a seemingly minimal sanction, but criminal action is still pending. We hope that the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office is working on that,” said PRI deputy Omar Bazán, who filed the complaint during Corral Jurado’s state administration, which was “misplaced” by Vargas Ruiz, which motivated a procedure against her by the Internal Control Body (OIC) of the very agency that she headed.
According to a statement from the State Civil Service, the former head of the agency was disqualified for three months, as a sanction issued by the OIC Responsibilities Area of the agency itself.
Without giving details of the proceedings against the former official of the Corralista administration, the SFP indicated that she tried to avoid the sanction through an injunction.
According to file 01/2022, in March 2022 the OIC Investigations Area initiated an investigation against Vargas Ruiz. In May of that year, she was summoned to proceedings under the Report of Presumed Responsibility, for failure to deliver information and lack of clarification of the observations made to the SFP delivery-receipt record.
In May, Vargas Ruiz filed an indirect appeal against the constitutionality of Article 4 of the Organic Law, with hierarchical and functional dependence on the head of the Executive Branch, before the Tenth District Court.
On June 10, a hearing was held in which she presented her arguments and statements in writing and verbally. That same day, she was granted a suspension so that no resolution could be issued. Later, on October 14, 2022, she was granted protection by the Tenth District Court, with the aim of achieving the non-application of the aforementioned article.
However, in November 2022, the OIC filed an Appeal for Review in the Seventeenth District Collegiate Court. It was not until March 11, 2024, when the revocation of the amparo ruling of the Tenth District Court was notified.
Thus, on June 24, 2024, the OIC issued the sanctioning resolution in terms of article 49 sections I and V to disqualify the former head of the SFP for three months.
The person who initiated the complaint is asking for a criminal sanction
After the sanction against the former official was announced, PRI legislator Omar Bazán indicated that the Civil Service needs to clarify the situation faced by the former head of the agency during the government of Javier Corral.
In addition, the Court considered that the procedure initiated for having “lost” its original complaint, from September 2019, should also serve to enable the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office to proceed through criminal proceedings, given that the crime of document forgery and other criminal conduct is presumed.
Bazán Flores explained that he filed a formal complaint with the Civil Service for the acquisition of the so-called ‘hot land’ of Corral Jurado since September 2019, but the file never advanced, so the official failed to fulfill her duty to investigate possible irregularities and initiate the procedure to sanction the then governor, in case of proving any fault.
On the contrary, he said, Vargas Ruiz cloned the folio of the complaint file with that of another irrelevant matter, so his complaint disappeared and never moved forward.
It was not until 2022, he reported, when he again reported Corral’s alleged irregularity, after the Civil Service, already in the current administration, informed him that there was no record of the original complaint, which was the reason that initiated the procedure against Vargas Ruiz.
“Who knows if it was her decision to lose the file on purpose… or if she did it on the instructions of her boss Corral, because in any case he would also bear responsibility in this matter,” said Bazán Flores, who insisted that the fault for which the former secretary was sanctioned is very clear, but insisted that criminal liability must also be established.
As for the reason for the complaint, both the original one from 2019, “lost” by Vargas Ruiz, and the one he filed again in 2022, he noted that former Governor Corral himself acknowledged in a video uploaded to social media last week that the so-called “hot land” is his property and he has not declared it nor explained how the acquisition was made, which he has not been able to properly register due to the legal problems represented by the irregular transaction for which he is accused.
In this matter, he pointed out that criminal proceedings should also be taken and that is what he hopes, so that the illegal conduct of both the former president and the former secretary of the Civil Service that he himself appointed to the post will be punished. (David Piñón Balderrama
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