The Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands has declared final the ruling of the Cueva de Los Verdes, which in February 2015 condemned the Cabildo to abandon this tourist center and pay a millionaire compensation to the City Council of Haría. The ruling orders to send the file to the Court of First Instance to proceed with the execution of the sentence and indicates that it will be there when the island institution and the northern Consistory can try to "homologate" the out-of-court agreement they reached in October 2016.
In its resolution, the Second Section of the Administrative Litigation Chamber of the TSJC again describes as "erratic" the procedure of the Cabildo in this lawsuit, in which both the island institution and the EPEL of the Tourist Centers were involved. And it is that this agreement, which they presented to the Court asking to put "an end to the procedure", was reached when the appeals against the first sentence had already been filed, which were not withdrawn, and when the final ruling was about to be issued.
"What would have been coherent and logical would have been for the appealing parties to simply withdraw from the appeal, as stated in the ninth clause of the signed agreement," says the TJSC, which emphasizes that, however, the "defenders" of that agreement "have made a series of erratic requests to terminate the procedure".
"Incompatible" approaches
Although the Cabildo tried to avoid this ruling, the Court points out that "it is mandatory to resolve this lawsuit by judgment", since the agreement was presented after the appeal against the judgment of first instance was filed. Thus, considering that the agreement reached by the parties and the writing presented by the Cabildo and the Tourist Centers are "incompatible", it decides to leave the appeal without effect and file it. "This is without prejudice to the agreement being presented for homologation before the Court competent to execute the judgment, which, based on this pronouncement, becomes final," adds the TSJC, thus referring the final decision on the validity of the agreement to the execution phase of the ruling.
The judgment that is now final was issued on February 10, 2015 by the Court of Administrative Litigation Number 5 of Las Palmas, following the lawsuit filed by the then mayor, José Torres Stinga. Faced with the debt accumulated by the payment of the fee and the messages launched from the Cabildo, questioning the ownership of the Cave and warning of a possible revision of that fee, the mayor decided to go to court, which ruled in his favor.
In its ruling, the Court ordered the "immediate restitution of the possession of said property to the City Council of Haría, as well as to pay it, as compensation for damages, 100% of the income obtained from the sale of tickets to the Cueva de Los Verdes from November 25, 2010 (which is the date on which the cessation was notified), until the restitution of its possession becomes effective, plus legal interest".
Compensation that would already exceed 18 million
When the judgment was issued, the amount of compensation was around 12 million euros, although more than two years have passed since then, which could raise the amount to more than 18 million euros, adding the income obtained since then from the sale of tickets to La Cueva.
Regarding the agreement reached between the Cabildo and the City Council after the change of mayor in the municipality, and which they must now try to have validated by the Court, it involves an "investment plan" in Haría for the next 10 years, with an annual investment "not less than 600,000 euros". That is, the Cabildo would commit to allocate about 6 million euros in investments over a decade.
In addition, the agreement also establishes the fee that the Tourist Centers would pay from now on to the City Council, which includes a "finalist fee" of 0.60 euros for each ticket to Jameos del Agua and the Cueva de los Verdes, and 0.30 euros for those of the Mirador del Río, in addition to another variable, equivalent to 5% of the amount of income from the sale of tickets, "once the amount of the finalist fee has been deducted".
