The Provincial Court of Las Palmas has just annulled the trial against the promoters of the La Bufona Partial Plan, which took 16 years to be held and already had a final judgment, but now it will have to be repeated again. Those who requested the annulment of the proceedings were the owners of the affected houses - among whom are the island president of the PP, Ástrid Pérez, and the former coordinating prosecutor of Lanzarote, Miguel Pallarés - since the ruling included the order for partial demolition of 14 homes.
It was after the firmness of that sentence was declared that several owners filed an incident of nullity claiming that they had been "harmed" by the ruling and that they had not been given the opportunity to appear in the case, which was directed against the architect Federico Echevarría and the builder Antonio Caro, who were convicted of a continuing crime against land management. In response to this request for annulment by the owners of the houses, the Public Prosecutor's Office opposed its admission, arguing that they had all been summoned as witnesses in the trial and that "they were able to express their opinion".
However, the Court considers that the fact that they testified as witnesses is not "sufficient" to consider that they were duly notified of the procedure and the consequences it could have for them. "Obviously, it could be considered whether this situation is not the result of their own voluntary neglect or lack of interest in defending their position when they could not be unaware of the existence of the procedure, even if only because of the public importance it has had", the Court points out, however.
"Strangeness" and "suspicion" of the Court, but not "certainty"
However, the order adds that "although the Court may consider it at least strange that they did not know the consequences that the conviction that could be handed down could have for their houses, it is evident that we cannot raise that strangeness, that suspicion, to the level of certainty that is necessary in this case". For this reason, it annuls the actions taken in the case since December 2011, when the Public Prosecutor's Office filed its indictment, and orders that the actions be retroacted to that moment, so that the owners of the properties may be summoned as civilly liable parties and the trial be held again.
This procedure that must be complied with now was already requested in its day by the Prosecutor's Office and even the Court ordered that this procedure be carried out, but the Court order indicates that despite this "they were not given a transfer". "They did not become aware of the claim for demolition of their homes, or part of them, raised by the Public Prosecutor's Office, which causes them defenselessness by not having been able to oppose it or claim compensation," he concludes.
Two decades of obstacles, errors and delays
This new blow to the cause adds to all the obstacles, errors and delays that it has been suffering during the last two decades, and that among other things made the penalties for those convicted reduced to the point of being "ridiculous", as the Provincial Court described them when issuing the final judgment of second instance. That second ruling further reduced the initial penalties, setting them at two months in prison for each defendant, which could be replaced by a fine of 1,200 euros, in addition to another fine of 1,200 euros and three months less a day of special disqualification for the profession of promoter or builder.
Now, this new failure in the instruction forces the trial to be repeated, although that in turn could serve to clarify some of the gaps left by this case, since the two convicted argued that the works carried out on rustic land were executed by the buyers after the sale. In fact, in the execution phase of the sentence, Echevarría and Caro asked that the owners of the homes bear the costs of the demolition, since several acknowledged when testifying as witnesses that they had undertaken works in the back of the houses after acquiring them, and that they did not request a license for it.
As for the other request made by the owners of the homes with their incident of nullity, requesting in a subsidiary manner that the part of the sentence ordering the demolition be annulled, the Court concludes that this "would be like declaring the inadmissibility of that decision, which is not at all appropriate", so it opts to retract the actions and hold the hearing again.
