Sentences for urban corruption are on the increase
In Spain, ‘Town Hall’ is still synonymous with urban corruption. Despite the fact that the housing crisis has dried up a source of wealth from which all the municipal authorities benefitted, through the management of land for development, the Law has not stopped looking very closely at these operations. In fact, convictions for environmental crimes related to land have skyrocketed, reaching a historical peak in 2009. The increase in one year was 28%, ranging from 301 to 386 sanctions, imposed mostly in coastal towns, with Andalusia in the lead.
The increase in convictions for urban offences illustrates the massive amount of litigation now underway in the Spanish courts concerning this matter. According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, last year there were 1,737 cases heard and 1,729 in the pre-trial stage, the stage prior to the prosecution of the case. Although there were sanctions against individuals, the majority of convictions concealed the spurious interests of municipal authorities. There are mayors, town planners, municipal technicians, developers and architects whose names are linked to property speculation and the breach of planning regulations with a single goal: unlawful enrichment. The figures themselves justify the space occupied in the media by news of convictions of those in public office.
The most common offences within this framework of corruption are urban prevarication, general prevarication and the failure to prosecute criminal offenses or the falsification of official documentation. The Official Prosecutor highlights the complexity of prosecuting these criminal cases in view of their uniqueness: the bodies that should control these excesses are the Town Halls themselves. They are required to act as ‘urban police’, - entities that manage the redevelopment of their own urban land.
Some Provincial Prosecutors already use, as a framework for their investigations, the so-called 'Auken Report', produced by a Danish MEP in 2009 with the collaboration of public platforms and Spanish citizens. The non-binding report calls on local authorities for the suspension of urban development plans that have been drawn up without respecting environmental criteria, and criticises the ‘excessive influence’ of developers in the decisions of corporations.
The Office of the Environment denounces the lack of cooperation of municipalities and states that in places like Valencia, Seville, Las Palmas and Murcia, those who instigate the greatest number of legal denouncements are municipal heads of urban affairs, environmental groups, law enforcement officers and private citizens, which generates a message of ‘impunity’, admits the Public Ministry.
Another growing concern is the ‘legal insecurity and uncertainty’ created by disparity between some court decisions involving the same region and similar offenses. This occurs mostly in convictions that determine the demolition of a house that was built illegally or the erection of prefabricated houses in non-residential areas, according to the Official Prosecutor.
* El Diario Montañés - 04/06/1910
Translation courtesy of Linda Palfreeman
