The Balearics High Court has considered an appeal by Pollensa mayor Tomeu Cifre against the fine imposed on him for the failure of the town hall to have demolished an illegally built house on the Calvari steps. Cifre had sought the withdrawal of the fine set back in July but the court has dismissed this, halving the fine to an amount equivalent to fifty euros instead.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Showing posts with label Balearics High Court. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Balearics High Court. Show all posts
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Saturday, September 07, 2013
Another Fine Mess: Balearics' trilingualism
The Balearics High Court did indeed move swiftly in responding to the call from unions to suspend the introduction of TIL ("tratamiento integrado de lenguas") and so prevent it from being applied from the start of the new school year. The court agreed with the unions, who had argued that the Balearic Government had not consulted in the way that it should have done in finalising the legislation that enacted the implementation of TIL (trilingualism) in June this year. The court considered that the appendix to the bill which set out the schedule for implementation amounted to a "fraud" in that relevant educational bodies were not involved in the scheduling decision.
The court's decision was made around midday yesterday. By late afternoon, the government announced that an extraordinary meeting of the government's council had ratified an amendment which annulled the offending appendix. The minister for education, Joana Maria Camps, explained that the problem had all been one of a procedural error but that it was one which had no political consequences as it was the type of slip-up any government administration could make.
Yes, she really did say this. Now, having realised that there had been a cock-up and having been told that there had been by the high court, the government has merely removed the appendix from the bill, said that consultation didn't matter anyway and that, as the court had only said that the scheduling was wrong, will still go full speed ahead with implementation minus any scheduling apart from that which will involve TIL being brought in at the start of the school year. The court did not consider that the principle of TIL was at fault, just the procedure.
If you are lost by the legal logic of all this, then you are not the only one. But regardless of this logic or absence of logic, the children of the Balearics will, as from 13 September (and then 16 September, which is when the school year really gets underway) be taught in three languages - Catalan, Castellano and English; those children to whom TIL applies, as it doesn't apply at all levels.
Whether this teaching does in fact start on time will depend on the unions, of which there is more than one, in addition to the assembly of teachers on the Balearics. It overwhelmingly called for strike action against the introduction of TIL. There has been some union movement to hold back on strikes because of a question raised as to its legality (a question mainly asked by the right-wing Balearics Institute for Family Policy), but this in itself has raised accusations that the government is acting in a "dictatorial" fashion in applying legal interpretations that wouldn't normally be applied to the notification of strike action.
One of the unions, STEI-i, believes that there has been "dictatorial" behaviour by the government in the way in which it has circumvented the High Court's decision, and all unions and the opposition PSOE party are in agreement that the government has acted in a unilateral fashion in not having come out and engaged in a full and proper debate over the past few months.
PSOE has called for all the leading politicians at the education ministry to resign or to be dismissed, which of course won't happen, and for President Bauzá to come and front up in public about the whole affair. Not untypically for political leaders in Spain (think Rajoy for example), Bauzá just melts into the background when the heat is on. Instead, he leaves the spin and the explanations to the unfortunate Joana María Camps; unfortunate because she is clearly out of her depth. It should be remembered that she only became education minister a few months ago when the previous minister, Rafael Bosch, lost his job in a cabinet re-shuffle. Bosch lost his job because he was not a fanatical proponent of linguistic policy that might undermine Catalan (and the fuss about TIL has less to do with English being brought in than with Catalan being downgraded). Camps was parachuted in because she would do she was told, even if she has little idea what she is doing.
The chances are that the new school year will witness total chaos and that the chaos will last. Who in all of this is most to blame? Both government and teachers. The government because of its mismanagement of its own policy and the teachers, who are just too obstinate to accept a system which might actually be of educational value.
It is a total mess, and the underperforming public education system in the Balearics is about to become more underperforming. It can't be anything else if the teachers are on strike.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The court's decision was made around midday yesterday. By late afternoon, the government announced that an extraordinary meeting of the government's council had ratified an amendment which annulled the offending appendix. The minister for education, Joana Maria Camps, explained that the problem had all been one of a procedural error but that it was one which had no political consequences as it was the type of slip-up any government administration could make.
Yes, she really did say this. Now, having realised that there had been a cock-up and having been told that there had been by the high court, the government has merely removed the appendix from the bill, said that consultation didn't matter anyway and that, as the court had only said that the scheduling was wrong, will still go full speed ahead with implementation minus any scheduling apart from that which will involve TIL being brought in at the start of the school year. The court did not consider that the principle of TIL was at fault, just the procedure.
If you are lost by the legal logic of all this, then you are not the only one. But regardless of this logic or absence of logic, the children of the Balearics will, as from 13 September (and then 16 September, which is when the school year really gets underway) be taught in three languages - Catalan, Castellano and English; those children to whom TIL applies, as it doesn't apply at all levels.
Whether this teaching does in fact start on time will depend on the unions, of which there is more than one, in addition to the assembly of teachers on the Balearics. It overwhelmingly called for strike action against the introduction of TIL. There has been some union movement to hold back on strikes because of a question raised as to its legality (a question mainly asked by the right-wing Balearics Institute for Family Policy), but this in itself has raised accusations that the government is acting in a "dictatorial" fashion in applying legal interpretations that wouldn't normally be applied to the notification of strike action.
One of the unions, STEI-i, believes that there has been "dictatorial" behaviour by the government in the way in which it has circumvented the High Court's decision, and all unions and the opposition PSOE party are in agreement that the government has acted in a unilateral fashion in not having come out and engaged in a full and proper debate over the past few months.
PSOE has called for all the leading politicians at the education ministry to resign or to be dismissed, which of course won't happen, and for President Bauzá to come and front up in public about the whole affair. Not untypically for political leaders in Spain (think Rajoy for example), Bauzá just melts into the background when the heat is on. Instead, he leaves the spin and the explanations to the unfortunate Joana María Camps; unfortunate because she is clearly out of her depth. It should be remembered that she only became education minister a few months ago when the previous minister, Rafael Bosch, lost his job in a cabinet re-shuffle. Bosch lost his job because he was not a fanatical proponent of linguistic policy that might undermine Catalan (and the fuss about TIL has less to do with English being brought in than with Catalan being downgraded). Camps was parachuted in because she would do she was told, even if she has little idea what she is doing.
The chances are that the new school year will witness total chaos and that the chaos will last. Who in all of this is most to blame? Both government and teachers. The government because of its mismanagement of its own policy and the teachers, who are just too obstinate to accept a system which might actually be of educational value.
It is a total mess, and the underperforming public education system in the Balearics is about to become more underperforming. It can't be anything else if the teachers are on strike.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
A Nasty Smell Of Power
Let's not beat about the bush. There's no sympathy for Mallorca's politicians who, one by one, have been sent or are being sent to a prison cell. For so long they didn't go inside. Now they are going. Nadal, Buils, Munar. Enjoy your summer vacations.
No sympathy but a nasty smell. There is one name missing from the register of inmates. Jaume Matas. Ex-president of the Balearics. He can enjoy the rest of the summer at liberty. And he can thank the Balearics High Court for allowing him to put his feet up on a sun lounger rather than having to take a holiday in the company of two former tourism ministers.
Matas had been sentenced to a total of six years for various misdemeanours related to that part of the "caso Palma Arena" which had to do with irregular payments involving the journalist Antonio Alemany. The High Court has reduced this sentence to nine months. It has confirmed Matas's guilt on one count of corruption but has quashed the other charges. A nine-month sentence for a first offence means he will not go to prison; a two-year sentence is normally the tariff required to trigger actual incarceration.
The nasty smell emanates from the fact that, whereas Matas has had a significant reduction in his sentence, others, in a different case, have not been so lucky. Miguel Nadal, one of the former tourism ministers, has copped for four years. Francesc Buils, the other former tourism minister, has received three years. Both these sentences relate to the "caso Voltor", one that centred on irregular payments through the tourism ministry. Nadal and Buils will, by the time you read this, either be inside or be packing a bag and getting ready to go away for a stretch.
Maria Antònia Munar, the former president of the Council of Mallorca, has been sent to prison. She has managed to thus far rack up a total of eleven and a half years for different offences. The court in Palma, not the High Court, agreed that she should enter prison. Her case will doubtless go to the High Court, the one that has spared Matas but has condemned Nadal.
Munar, powerful woman though she once was, may not find the High Court to be as lenient as it has been with Matas. One very big difference between, on the one hand, Jaume Matas, and on the other, Munar, Nadal and Buils, is that Matas was a Partido Popular politician; Munar, Nadal and Buils were all with the disgraced, now defunct Unió Mallorquina. And it is this difference that really causes the smell plus the fact, where Nadal and Buils are concerned, that they were comparatively unimportant and lesser political figures. They have been dispensable, and their dispensability owes at least something to their weakness; they, especially Nadal, just seemed to do what they had to do or what they were told to do.
There can be no sympathy and there is no sympathy for Nadal and Buils, but the shock that has greeted the reduction in Matas's sentence has been compounded by the treatment of these other politicians. They were different cases, but there is a real feeling of one rule for the powerful and one rule for the less powerful; for the dispensable.
Matas, prior to his reprieve, had spoken of the messages of support he had been receiving from former colleagues within the PP. He was at pains to point out that they were just friendly gestures, but the mere fact of them having been made has raised suspicions. Not for the first time, a leading politician, rather than a more lowly one, has been spared a spell in prison. And these leading politicians typically come from the ranks of the PP, though not exclusively; a case against the former PSOE minister, José Blanco, for trafficking influence, was recently archived by the High Court in Madrid.
Matas isn't completely out of the woods as he is implicated in other cases, but it has been put to me that he will end up avoiding prison. The sentence reduction reinforces a perception that the courts ultimately bow to pressure. Matas was not just a former Balearics president, he was also environment minister from 2000 to 2003 in the Aznar national government.
But what of Munar? Not a member of the PP, will she prove to be dispensable? What has come out over the years since both she and Matas were first faced with serious charges is that both of them ran their parties in all-powerful ways. But while Matas might still be able to cling to some former power, what is there for Maria Munar to cling to?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
No sympathy but a nasty smell. There is one name missing from the register of inmates. Jaume Matas. Ex-president of the Balearics. He can enjoy the rest of the summer at liberty. And he can thank the Balearics High Court for allowing him to put his feet up on a sun lounger rather than having to take a holiday in the company of two former tourism ministers.
Matas had been sentenced to a total of six years for various misdemeanours related to that part of the "caso Palma Arena" which had to do with irregular payments involving the journalist Antonio Alemany. The High Court has reduced this sentence to nine months. It has confirmed Matas's guilt on one count of corruption but has quashed the other charges. A nine-month sentence for a first offence means he will not go to prison; a two-year sentence is normally the tariff required to trigger actual incarceration.
The nasty smell emanates from the fact that, whereas Matas has had a significant reduction in his sentence, others, in a different case, have not been so lucky. Miguel Nadal, one of the former tourism ministers, has copped for four years. Francesc Buils, the other former tourism minister, has received three years. Both these sentences relate to the "caso Voltor", one that centred on irregular payments through the tourism ministry. Nadal and Buils will, by the time you read this, either be inside or be packing a bag and getting ready to go away for a stretch.
Maria Antònia Munar, the former president of the Council of Mallorca, has been sent to prison. She has managed to thus far rack up a total of eleven and a half years for different offences. The court in Palma, not the High Court, agreed that she should enter prison. Her case will doubtless go to the High Court, the one that has spared Matas but has condemned Nadal.
Munar, powerful woman though she once was, may not find the High Court to be as lenient as it has been with Matas. One very big difference between, on the one hand, Jaume Matas, and on the other, Munar, Nadal and Buils, is that Matas was a Partido Popular politician; Munar, Nadal and Buils were all with the disgraced, now defunct Unió Mallorquina. And it is this difference that really causes the smell plus the fact, where Nadal and Buils are concerned, that they were comparatively unimportant and lesser political figures. They have been dispensable, and their dispensability owes at least something to their weakness; they, especially Nadal, just seemed to do what they had to do or what they were told to do.
There can be no sympathy and there is no sympathy for Nadal and Buils, but the shock that has greeted the reduction in Matas's sentence has been compounded by the treatment of these other politicians. They were different cases, but there is a real feeling of one rule for the powerful and one rule for the less powerful; for the dispensable.
Matas, prior to his reprieve, had spoken of the messages of support he had been receiving from former colleagues within the PP. He was at pains to point out that they were just friendly gestures, but the mere fact of them having been made has raised suspicions. Not for the first time, a leading politician, rather than a more lowly one, has been spared a spell in prison. And these leading politicians typically come from the ranks of the PP, though not exclusively; a case against the former PSOE minister, José Blanco, for trafficking influence, was recently archived by the High Court in Madrid.
Matas isn't completely out of the woods as he is implicated in other cases, but it has been put to me that he will end up avoiding prison. The sentence reduction reinforces a perception that the courts ultimately bow to pressure. Matas was not just a former Balearics president, he was also environment minister from 2000 to 2003 in the Aznar national government.
But what of Munar? Not a member of the PP, will she prove to be dispensable? What has come out over the years since both she and Matas were first faced with serious charges is that both of them ran their parties in all-powerful ways. But while Matas might still be able to cling to some former power, what is there for Maria Munar to cling to?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Cifre appeals fine for non-demoliton of Calvari house
Pollensa's mayor, Tomeu Cifre, has lodged an appeal against the fine imposed on him by the Balearics High Court for not complying with an order to ensure the demolition of a house on Pollensa's Calvari. The mayor argues that the fine is disproportionate to his monthly salary and that the non-demolition is not on account of passivity but of administrative procedures.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Judges On The Beach: Es Trenc hotel
Judges at the higher courts in Mallorca and Spain must be longing for August to come, so that they can pack their robes away, head for the beaches and forget about having to make legal decisions for a few weeks. The judges have been super-busy of late. And a couple of them, from the Balearics High Court, may well opt to head for Es Trenc beach, safe in the knowledge that their vacation peace and quiet will not be disturbed by the sound of bulldozers moving in and levelling ground in preparation for a five-star hotel complex. The great hotel-next-to-Es Trenc controversy is on hold. At least for now.
One of the judges, Pablo Delfont, will have the additional satisfaction of glancing over at the site of what once were apartments. They aren't there now. They have been demolished, and Judge Delfont was the judge who ordered the demolition and the fining of the mayor of Campos for not pulling his finger out earlier and bringing the wrecking crews in.
The higher courts, when not being bombarded with originals of allegedly illegal accounts kept by former Partido Popular treasurers, spend a good deal of their time deciding what can be built, what can't be built and what has to be demolished. Along with the demolition orders, they also spend time working out fines for dilatory mayors. Pollensa's Tomeu Cifre is another council leader who is going to find himself out of pocket because a house on the Calvari steps is still there. It shouldn't be, says the Balearics High Court. And it finally made the order at the end of last year, a mere twenty years after the case first arose. There are administrative procedures that have to be gone through, pleads mayor Cifre. There certainly are.
But back at Es Trenc, Judge Delfont can bask in the sun, content with a job well done. He, rather than the environmental opponents, the propaganda handed out to tourists at the airport or the bluster from opposition parties, has put the kibosh on the hotel. And he has done so, thanks to the discovery of a simple item related to the planning for the complex.
The Council of Mallorca, which had given the go ahead for the building as part of the island's land plan, had spotted a mistake in this plan as it related to the hotel complex. Where it said that the complex would require two hectares, it should have said 21 hectares. The Council, in a sense, just tippexed out the two and wrote in 21. It was a mistake. Anyone could have made it. Of course they could have. Two hectares, twenty-one hectares; neither here nor there. If you aren't au fait with the hectare, it equates to 10,000 square metres or just under two and a half acres. Lord's Cricket Ground in London is roughly two hectares in size. The hotel complex would need ten and a half Lord's rather than one.
It could have all been an administrative error, but the judges plainly thought otherwise. Indeed, they were of the opinion that this error was a strategy of concealment and have therefore annulled the Council's approval. It will either now have to draw up a new plan or the hotel will be dead in the Es Trenc water.
The court was responding to challenges brought by opposition parties and by a company called Zarpimi, which has a fairly long history of dealings with the Council of Mallorca and with judges in Mallorca. In 1998, the Council imposed a moratorium on urban developments. Zarpimi was one company which challenged this, and the High Court agreed that the Council had gone too far in blocking some one hundred developments on the island. The Council then underwent a shift in political complexion and in 2004 it drew up a "definitive" land plan and it also, with an agreement authorised by the then president of the Council, Maria Antonia Munar, came up with a plan for Sa Rapita, i.e. near to Es Trenc beach, for a much bigger project than the one that the High Court has now put on hold. It would have involved construction on an area at least twice the size. The constructor was to have been Zarpimi.
A combination of a rival company, opposition parties and the judges has done for the Es Trenc project for now. Whether, even with a revision of the land plan, it ever gets built, who can say. Nothing ever runs smoothly in Mallorca. Which is why the judges are kept so busy. They deserve their holiday.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
One of the judges, Pablo Delfont, will have the additional satisfaction of glancing over at the site of what once were apartments. They aren't there now. They have been demolished, and Judge Delfont was the judge who ordered the demolition and the fining of the mayor of Campos for not pulling his finger out earlier and bringing the wrecking crews in.
The higher courts, when not being bombarded with originals of allegedly illegal accounts kept by former Partido Popular treasurers, spend a good deal of their time deciding what can be built, what can't be built and what has to be demolished. Along with the demolition orders, they also spend time working out fines for dilatory mayors. Pollensa's Tomeu Cifre is another council leader who is going to find himself out of pocket because a house on the Calvari steps is still there. It shouldn't be, says the Balearics High Court. And it finally made the order at the end of last year, a mere twenty years after the case first arose. There are administrative procedures that have to be gone through, pleads mayor Cifre. There certainly are.
But back at Es Trenc, Judge Delfont can bask in the sun, content with a job well done. He, rather than the environmental opponents, the propaganda handed out to tourists at the airport or the bluster from opposition parties, has put the kibosh on the hotel. And he has done so, thanks to the discovery of a simple item related to the planning for the complex.
The Council of Mallorca, which had given the go ahead for the building as part of the island's land plan, had spotted a mistake in this plan as it related to the hotel complex. Where it said that the complex would require two hectares, it should have said 21 hectares. The Council, in a sense, just tippexed out the two and wrote in 21. It was a mistake. Anyone could have made it. Of course they could have. Two hectares, twenty-one hectares; neither here nor there. If you aren't au fait with the hectare, it equates to 10,000 square metres or just under two and a half acres. Lord's Cricket Ground in London is roughly two hectares in size. The hotel complex would need ten and a half Lord's rather than one.
It could have all been an administrative error, but the judges plainly thought otherwise. Indeed, they were of the opinion that this error was a strategy of concealment and have therefore annulled the Council's approval. It will either now have to draw up a new plan or the hotel will be dead in the Es Trenc water.
The court was responding to challenges brought by opposition parties and by a company called Zarpimi, which has a fairly long history of dealings with the Council of Mallorca and with judges in Mallorca. In 1998, the Council imposed a moratorium on urban developments. Zarpimi was one company which challenged this, and the High Court agreed that the Council had gone too far in blocking some one hundred developments on the island. The Council then underwent a shift in political complexion and in 2004 it drew up a "definitive" land plan and it also, with an agreement authorised by the then president of the Council, Maria Antonia Munar, came up with a plan for Sa Rapita, i.e. near to Es Trenc beach, for a much bigger project than the one that the High Court has now put on hold. It would have involved construction on an area at least twice the size. The constructor was to have been Zarpimi.
A combination of a rival company, opposition parties and the judges has done for the Es Trenc project for now. Whether, even with a revision of the land plan, it ever gets built, who can say. Nothing ever runs smoothly in Mallorca. Which is why the judges are kept so busy. They deserve their holiday.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Pollensa's mayor to be fined until Calvari house is demolished
The Balearics High Court has ordered that Pollensa's mayor, Tomeu Cifre, should pay a fine of 100 euros for every ten days that its ruling regarding the demolition of a house on the Calvari steps is not complied with. This case dates back to 1992 when the town hall granted a licence for the house to be built only for a neighbour to then complain because it obstructed the view from the Calvari. Finally, in December last year, the court insisted that demolition should be completed by the start of this month. As it hasn't been, the court has decided to take the action against the mayor, while the town hall faces the prospect of paying compensation to the owner of up to one million euros.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Saturday, March 23, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Ternelles owners seek annulment of previous access decisions
Pollensa town hall has admitted defeat in its legal attempts to ensure public right of access to the walk across the Ternelles finca. The period for appealing the most recent decision of the Balearics High Court has now passed, the town hall conceding that the chances of having it reversed were almost zero. The owners are therefore now seeking an annulment of previous decisions regarding public access. The High Court, having founded in favour of the private ownership, will now have to decide if there is to be public access at all.
See more: Ultima Hora
See more: Ultima Hora
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - High court rules against double taxation for Puerto Pollensa terraces
Comment: This is an important decision by the court as it tackles the absurd situation that exists not only in Pollensa of businesses paying more than once for the same public space. It also highlights the confusion over which authority has dominion over what. There is a third body which comes into this equation, namely the Balearics Ports Authority, which, as an example, collects revenue from businesses on Alcúdia's Paseo Marítimo. A definitive ruling is needed to establish that there is one body and one alone that has the right to apply a tax, and the most sensible one would be the town halls, a possible problem with this being, as shown in Puerto Pollensa, that when it comes to maintenance of the frontlines, it is the Costas which have to act, meaning it would want tax revenue. Confused, it most definitely is.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
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