The Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands has given the mayor of Teguise, Oswaldo Betancort, 15 days to explain why he has not yet executed the final judgment that in 2007 annulled the license of what is now one of the skeletons of Costa Teguise, located near the residence of La Mareta, or to clarify if “in this extended period of time” he has adopted any measures to comply with the ruling.
In addition, he warns that “in the event that the response given is unsatisfactory”, the mayor could face personal fines and even criminal actions for the commission of a possible crime.
Specifically, in a provision dated January 18, the Second Section of the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the TSJC warns the mayor of the possibility of imposing coercive fines of 1,000 euros per month until he complies with what was agreed by the Court, and emphasizes that he would have to pay them “from his personal assets”.
And all this, he adds, “without prejudice to deducing testimony of particulars” - that is, of opening new proceedings against him - “to demand the criminal responsibility that may arise” for not having complied with the judicial mandate.
An order for “immediate execution” since 2015
In this regard, the Chamber recalls that in November 2015 it already had to address the City Council ordering the “immediate execution” of the sentence issued eight years earlier. At that time, the César Manrique Foundation had urged the execution, asking the Court to intervene, given that the ruling had not been complied with and the skeleton was still standing.
The TSJC then asked the City Council for explanations about the steps that had been taken or about “the reasons for the non-compliance”, given the years that had passed. The response of the Consistory, through a letter from the mayor, was to refer to the new General Plan that had just been approved in 2014, asking the Court to set “a reasonable period of time” for the promoters to urge “the legalization of the affected plots”.
However, as the Chamber now recalls, in that same letter the mayor acknowledged that “the legalization of the works was not appropriate”, which implies that only demolition would be possible. In fact, he confirmed that the property had not even tried to apply for a new license.
Therefore, the TSJC responded by ordering the “immediate execution” of the sentence, in a provision that more than six years later remains unfulfilled. The promoters filed an appeal against that provision, but it was already dismissed in June 2020, and that appeal did not even have to interfere with the obligation to execute a final judgment.
A crime of prevarication in the granting of the permit
This sentence that has been years without being executed annulled the extension of a license granted by the previous mayor of Teguise, Juan Pedro Hernández, for a complex of 422 apartments, with administrative center and commercial premises on plot 242-B of Costa Teguise.
The initial license was granted in 1989, but it expired without the promoters getting to execute it. A decade later, in 1998, Hernández authorized an extension, without technical or legal reports, and ignoring that the permit violated the planning in force at that time, both in relation to the Island Plan and the Partial Plan.
Years later, in the piece of the Yate case focused on Teguise, Juan Pedro Hernández confessed that he granted this and other permits knowing of their illegality, and was convicted of crimes of prevarication.
The Cabildo managed to stop the works in its day
Unlike what happened with other illegal hotels and complexes - which were already finished and operating when the sentences arrived - in this case the Cabildo managed to stop the works shortly after they began.
Afterwards, the annulment of the permit in court in 2007 definitively stopped the construction, but to this day it has not “restored legality”, which is what the ruling ordered; while the ownership of the plot has changed hands.
“Instead of proceeding with the execution of what was ruled in the required terms, the Municipal Corporation has been for years, many, doing nothing more than delaying the execution and evading compliance with the sentence, trying to deactivate and make ineffective the judicial resolution”, denounced the legal representation of the Cabildo within this incident of execution of sentence, in which he claimed the demolition of that skeleton.
“The legalization of the works, and more so when they are contrary to the planning, as is the case, is not the goal of the procedure of restoring the disturbed legal order that begins once the license is annulled, but a previous step that, if it does not occur or is not possible, must entail the subsequent replacement to its former state of the altered physical reality, without being able to wait indefinitely in the hope that it will occur”, the Cabildo warned in its last letter, dated last April.
“Hence it is inadmissible to grant 'more time' to the City Council of Teguise to report on the status of execution of the sentence and on the procedures followed for that purpose”, he added. For this reason, he asked that the Consistory order the property to proceed with the demolition, with the warning that in case of non-compliance the City Council will execute it, charging the company for the expenses incurred.
For its part, the Chamber has taken a further step and after recalling its provision of 2015 in which it already ordered the execution, and the order in which it rejected the appeal of the property in 2020, has asked the mayor to explain why the ruling is still not being complied with, warning him that he could be committing a crime. In this regard, it cites the Regulatory Law of Contentious-Administrative Jurisdiction, which includes the obligation to comply with the judgments and establishes the measures that a court can adopt against the “authorities, officials or agents who fail to comply with the requirements of the Court or the Chamber”.
