This concerns the hiring of the head of human resources at Puertos de Las Palmas, which is being examined by the Las Palmas Provincial Prosecutor’s Office and could trigger a cascade of annulments in a wide range of procedures—something no one at the institution wants. The selection and job-placement processes for staff not covered by a collective agreement at the Las Palmas Port Authority have the formal backing of the State Attorney General’s Office and the Directorate-General for Civil Service. Several opinions and reports issued by both bodies of the General State Administration conclude that the processing of cases during Luis Ibarra’s presidency complied with the regulatory framework applicable to entities in the state public sector. Puertos del Estado informed prosecutors that Ibarra complied with the law.
Letter to prosecutors
The controversy reached a new milestone במסגרת the pretrial proceedings numbered 209/2025 before the Las Palmas Provincial Prosecutor’s Office. In response to a letter from the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the President of Puertos del Estado, Gustavo Santana Hernández, sent an official reply on May 12, 2026, confirming that the Directorate-General for Civil Service had issued a favorable opinion on the generic models for selecting staff outside collective agreements, in accordance with Article 50 of the Consolidated Text of the Law on State Ports and the Merchant Marine.
In that report, the presidency of Puertos del Estado expressly specified that no specific guidelines had been issued from Madrid for the position of Head of the Human Resources Department or for any specific post, making clear that each Port Authority is responsible for addressing its operational needs while respecting the percentages and stages of the process established in the framework model.
The reports issued by the central government confirm the legal validity of the calls for applications issued during Luis Ibarra’s tenure. The opinions of the State Attorney’s Office and the Civil Service Directorate-General, together with the resolution signed by Gustavo Santana at Puertos del Estado, establish that the filling of positions complied with the procedures set for Spanish port authorities.
A smokescreen
The origin of this technical scrutiny dates back to doubts and challenges raised in political and institutional circles regarding the filling of strategic vacancies and management positions at the port authority. In order to clarify the respective powers and define the Port Authority’s room for maneuver vis-à-vis the central government bodies, the port presidency itself, during Ibarra’s tenure, submitted a formal query to the State Attorney’s Office in the Canary Islands.
In its opinion, drafted by Chief State Attorney José Luis Risquete Fernández, the state advisory body determined the division of powers established by sector-specific legislation. The document states that, under the Consolidated Text of the Law on State Ports and the Merchant Marine (TRLPEMM), “Puertos del Estado is responsible for drawing up guidelines and procedures for staff selection, from which it follows that this Public Entity is the one to which the law assigns the power to establish basic rules for all Port Authorities.” In this way, the State Attorney’s Office specified that the local authority’s room for maneuver had to be strictly limited to the hiring instructions issued by the parent entity at the national level.
Civil Service endorsement
Based on those common guidelines for the national port system as a whole, generic models for the terms and conditions governing calls for applications for permanent staff not covered by a collective agreement were developed. Those terms were sent to the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Civil Service for review and approval.
The Director-General for Civil Service, María Isabel Borrel Roncalés, issued a favorable report validating the proposed selection criteria. In its submission, the Directorate-General explained its decision by verifying that “the selection of staff within the state-owned port system shall be carried out in accordance with the constitutional principles of equality, merit and ability, through a public call for applications.”
The ministerial report was not limited to a formal review, but also detailed the procedural safeguards essential to the validity of future appointments. To that end, the Civil Service resolution expressly emphasizes that “the conduct of the selection processes arising from this call-for-applications model must comply with the constitutional principles of equality, merit and ability, as well as with the other principles established in Article 55 of Royal Legislative Decree 5/2015 of October 30, approving the consolidated text of the Basic Statute of Public Employees.”
Safeguards and gender impact
The central body’s review also assessed the procedural impact of the texts from the perspective of gender equality and equal opportunities. The assessment concluded that the calls for applications were consistent with current legislation in this area, stating that “in compliance with the provisions of Article 55 of Organic Law 3/2007 of March 22 on the effective equality of women and men, it must be noted that the gender-related treatment in this procedure is correct (…) Therefore, the gender impact of the generic call-for-applications model mentioned above is considered not to be negative.”
The legal framework outlined by the Civil Service Directorate-General and the State Attorney’s Office establishes that the actions of the Las Palmas Port senior management remained within the parameters set for the General State Administration. Contrary to the Prosecutor’s Office’s position on human resources management at the institution, the reports issued by the central government confirm the legal validity of the calls for applications issued during Luis Ibarra’s tenure. The ratification of these procedures by the state’s legal services rules out arbitrariness in drafting the terms and conditions and confirms that the filling of positions complied with the regulations applicable to Spanish port authorities.
The article Santana responds to prosecutors: Ibarra complied with the law in hiring at Las Palmas Port was first published on canarymaritime.com.
