The Contentious-Administrative Court Number 5 of Las Palmas has agreed to impose a first coercive fine of 500 euros on the mayor of Teguise, Oswaldo Betancort, for the “systematic non-compliance” of a sentence. The ruling, which has been final for three years, annulled a license granted by the City Council, which covered the illegal extension of a home.
The order also warns that the same fine will be reiterated “on the 1st of each month, until the complete execution of the ruling is achieved”, which would imply the demolition of what was illegally built.
In case of non-payment, the magistrate makes it clear that the forced execution of the fines will proceed. In addition, he orders that it be guaranteed that they are paid with the mayor's personal funds, and for this he requests that the Consistory's comptroller report “within the first 5 business days of each month that he does not receive in his remuneration any emolument outside of those established legally or conventionally.”
Regarding the deadline to pay the first fine, the judge gives the mayor five days from the notification of the order, which is dated June 8. In addition, he emphasizes that although an appeal may be filed against this resolution, it will not have a “suspensive nature”, so he will also have to start paying the first fine now.
Regarding the amount, he points out that it is “higher than the minimum level set” because “the mayor has been personally required on three occasions, with the corresponding warnings, to explain why the sentence is not being executed and the justifications have been completely unsatisfactory, revealing the intention” to “delay the resolution of the file to restore urban legality.”
"A compendium of empty bureaucracy" to "pretend activity aimed at executing the ruling"
The sentence that remains unexecuted was issued by this same Court in October 2017, annulling the license granted by the City Council to legalize the extension of a home, located within a residential complex. The Consistory then appealed the ruling, but the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands rejected its appeal and ordered the City Council to pay the costs generated, declaring the sentence final in June 2019.
“Having elapsed the period of voluntary execution without the defendant Administration having carried it out”, the forced execution was urged by the plaintiffs affected by that license. Later, as the non-compliance continued, the imposition of personal fines on the mayor was also requested, which are those that the Court has now agreed to.
In his allegations to avoid this sanction, Oswaldo Betancort denied that there was a “resistance” from the City Council to execute the ruling, defending that after the final sentence, “he immediately annulled the act and initiated the procedure for the restoration” of legality.
However, the Court concludes that “it is impossible to assume” these arguments. “If things were as they are related, a forced execution of the judicial ruling would not have been appropriate, but rather the mayor would have voluntarily complied with it without the need to initiate any judicial file”, he emphasizes, adding that “almost three years have not passed since the confirmatory ruling of the TSJC, without yet having news of the completion of the procedure.”
On the contrary, the magistrate considers that what the mayor has contributed in his defense is “a compendium of empty bureaucracy that seeks to pretend an administrative activity aimed at executing the ruling, but what it tries and achieves is to delay the resolution of the file to restore urban legality.”
In addition, he questions that a first file was “allowed to expire”, as well as “the various requests to extend the deadline to execute the sentence, made with the same intention.”
Warning with criminal actions
“What corresponds is to immediately resolve the restoration procedure”, insists the Court, which also warns Oswaldo Betancort with possible criminal actions if he continues without executing the ruling.
This warning is also extended to the technicians who participate in the file, emphasizing that they cannot issue reports that “defy the content of the two sentences that constitute the object of this execution.”
Otherwise, he indicates that proceedings will be opened “for disobedience to the judicial Authority with respect to the mayor of the Municipal Corporation and all those technicians who sign reports that manifestly do not respect in a precise and scrupulous manner the content of the sentence of this Court and that of the Chamber of the TSJ of the Canary Islands.”
Another previous fine warning in another case
With this judicial resolution, the mayor faces the first fine for similar events, although he had previously had other warnings.
Last January, the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands threatened the mayor with fines of 1,000 euros per month for not executing another ruling, relating to one of the skeletons of illegal hotels in Costa Teguise. In that case, the sentence was final since 2007, and had been unexecuted for 15 years.
In that resolution, the TSJC demanded that the mayor explain why it was not executed, warning with those fines “in the event that the answer given is unsatisfactory.”
Shortly after that judicial warning, Betancort announced that the promoters of one of those illegal skeletons were going to assume the demolition, which is what corresponds in these procedures and what the Cabildo and the César Manrique Foundation demanded as plaintiffs. A few weeks ago the demolition of a skeleton began, after almost two decades of waiting.