The Madrid Provincial Prosecutor’s Office has sent a letter to the twenty-eighth section of the Madrid Provincial Court in which it requests that reject the challenge presented by both UEFA and the Professional Football League (LFP) against the judge handling the case of the Football Super League, Judge Manuel Ruiz de Lara, who was acting as interim in Mercantile Court 17 and left his position to Judge Sofía Gil García, who is now the incumbent. For the representative of the Public Ministry, the reasons alleged for trying to remove Judge Ruiz de Lara from the case, “They do not reveal the previous relationship of the Magistrate with the object of the process.” Furthermore, he does not even believe that the lawsuit “provides him with an advantage or benefit” or that it will prevent him from harming “him or his close associates.”
Both UEFA and the LFP maintained at the time that there were indications that revealed the “apparent predisposition towards the claims of the plaintiff” on the part of the challenged magistrate. They cited, among others, the “speed” (two days) with which the instructor adopted a series of precautionary measures proposed by the representatives of the Super League “unheard of.” They also affirmed that in the order issued on April 20, 2021, the magistrate appeared to prejudge “in advance” the merits of the matter, or other issues such as the leakage to the press of information prior to the notification or the participation of the challenged in a round table about “Cases of abuse of dominant position: Superliga case”.
The Prosecutor’s Office recalls that the causes to maintain that a judge has a direct or indirect interest in a case, a reason that would give rise to accepting the challenge, are “clearly” contemplated in the law. In this specific case, the alleged assumptions, in the opinion of the representative of the Public Ministry, “are not subsumed in the plea for recusal invoked.” For this reason, in his brief he emphasizes that no previous relationship of the magistrate with the object of the process has been found “or that the lawsuit provides him an advantage or benefit or avoids a burden or damage for him or his relatives, nor an interest current, that is, concurrent at the time when the dismissal of the Magistrate is promoted through his challenge “.
Thus, it specifies that the reasoning presented by the judge to support the adoption of precautionary measures, “whether or not they are shared”, are part of the work that “necessarily” has to be carried out during the processing of the case “on the viability, veracity, plausibility of the specific claims that they want to ensure”. Hence, “in no case are they revealing of a direct or indirect interest of the Judge in the object of the procedure.”
The Prosecutor’s Office also maintains that the magistrate’s decision to suspend the process and later lift said suspension is not “arbitrary” until the preliminary rulings raised before the Court of Justice of the European Union (SJUE) were resolved. Furthermore, on this issue, it considers that “neither can the conclusion be drawn that the judge has a direct or indirect interest in the lawsuit”
Regarding the leaks to the press, the Public Ministry responds that the accreditation of their existence “corresponds to who invokes it” and adds that in this case it refers “to certain indications that are based on facts that are not proven either. “. Finally, it insists that the magistrate’s participation in a round table scheduled with the title “Cases of abuse of dominant position has not been proven: Superliga case “, a circumstance that was even denied.