A ruling could jeopardize the 'status quo' of the ownership of the April Fair booths

For many Sevillians, obtaining a license to have a booth at the Seville Fair brings more joy than if they had won the Christmas prize. The average to get one is 30 years. A sensation directly proportional to that of losing ownership. A drama that is very difficult to reverse, because the City Council, which controls the process, does not usually respond to complaints. The prevailing criterion, and on which the eyes of the thousands of families, groups of friends and entities that wait decades on the waiting list are focused, is limited to submitting the application or renewal of the license and paying the fees within of the period stipulated in the ordinance that regulates it.

Until now. A ruling from the Superior Court of Justice to which this newspaper has had access has ruled in favor of some claimants who submitted the renewal application out of time, holding the council responsible for having misled the applicants by not having communicated those deadlines to them. email. The ruling, which can be appealed by the City Council or the affected family in cassation before the Supreme Court, can generate jurisprudence and open the door to similar claims, threatening the the status quo that prevails over the organization and distribution of the booths at the Seville fairgrounds.

On March 11, 2022, the Governing Board of the Seville City Council declared the loss of ownership of the three-module shed owned by a well-known family in the capital for having submitted the application for a traditional ownership license outside the deadline established in the Municipal Ordinance of the April Fair (OMFA), of 2011. This decision meant that these three modules were divided into three booths, 173, 175 and 177 on Juan Belmonte Street in the fairgrounds, and that they were awarded to other petitioners who were They were on the waiting list. The affected owner appealed the decision individually for each of the new booths and when the contentious-administrative court ruled in favor of the council’s decision, she appealed again to the TSJA.

On February 23, the Third Section of the autonomous high court issued its ruling that affects only booth 173 — the appeal of the other two is being reviewed by another chamber. In their conclusions, the magistrates agree with the appellant family and admit their argument that the City Council had broken the principle of legal certainty, because on previous occasions it had been informed of the deadlines for renewing the ownership of the booths through official announcements and in newspapers. Another of the allegations they make is that the council had “misled” them because in 2020 and 2021, due to the pandemic (and when there was no Fair), the council suspended the deadline for submitting applications for adjudication “until further notice.” order”, according to an email sent to the booth owners by the Delegation of Major Festivals.

The appellants maintain that, two years later and normality had resumed, they had “the right to receive an email announcing the deadline for applying for booths,” appealing to the announcement of the opening of the deadline for submitting applications for the 2022 Fair in which It was established that the City Council “will also send a letter to all the booth owners communicating the opening of the application period for the next Fair via email”, “which it did not do.”

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The OMFA is clear and establishes in its article 22 that “the date of submission of the different applications to access or renew the license must be between November 1 and 15.” Article 15 establishes that “failure to comply with the deadline established for submitting the license application or for paying the tax fees entails the automatic loss of the license.” The appellant family submitted the documentation on November 17, 2022, two days after the legal deadline expired.

For its part, the City Council argued that the emails that warned that the deadlines were suspended until “further order” made express reference to that year and that it had nothing to do with the Fair for which the license was withdrawn from the fair. recurring family. He also argued that the administration has no legal obligation to send communications electronically. “If it were true that the City Council did not make the standardized renewal models available to the booth owners, it is not understandable how 1,186 could present them. Of course, it could not be this alleged non-compliance that motivated the appellant’s failure to submit the application on time, but rather her own lack of diligence,” said the council lawyer.

Although the judges cite numerous jurisprudence that supports the loss of the license due to untimely renewal or payment of fees, in their ruling they agree with the appellant family. “The express declaration of the Administration that it will make this communication by email cannot be ignored or withdrawn unless it contradicts and violates the doctrine of proper acts,” the judges point out. To the City Council’s allegation of the negligence of the appellant family, the judges respond that “the fact that there is a tiny number of applicants who have not followed the foreseeable payment behavior in the new period, compared to those who overwhelmingly have observed, it does not detract from the fact that the appellant may have suffered an error generated by the Administration.”

The PSOE of Seville also loses the booth

The owners of the other two booths also appealed by the same family have been on guard against this ruling and the risk that it could influence the court handling their case and rule in the same way. The lawyers have met with the City Council, which has publicly been lukewarm when it comes to confirming that it will appeal this sentence, to find out what the council is going to do, and they warn that this sentence opens the door to a flood of resources from of other owners who have lost their booths in recent years. Currently there are 1,385 applications on the waiting list, both from families and entities, to which we must add 409 from owners who lost their booth, among whom is the appellant family, according to the age data of the booths of the City hall.

“The one who failed to comply is benefiting. Basically, the use and enjoyment of the public domain is being questioned,” explains Javier Talegón, one of the lawyers of booth 177, whose owners have spent 29 years of waiting to obtain it. “It’s called CAT Juvenil, because we applied for it when we were 18,” says one of the partners ironically who sees his continuity in danger. Talegón draws attention to the exceptional nature of this ruling favoring the particular interest of the appellant over the general interest, which must take precedence in the contentious-administrative procedure. “The court appeals to usage and custom [la comunicación telemática], but what has been broken is the law, its compliance could not depend on an email,” he adds. The lawyer hopes that the court in which his appeal has fallen will follow another criterion and remembers that the rapporteur of the current ruling, Victoriano Valpuesta, is known for his controversial sentences.

Sources familiar with the case have informed this newspaper that the City Council’s intention is to appeal, but that the legal teams are studying the viability. On their shoulders weighs the sword of Damocles of another loss of ownership that has caused more controversy and noise this year: that of the municipal booth of the PSOE of Seville, five modules that, as in the case of the recent ruling of the TSJA, already They have been distributed among five families and institutions that were on the waiting list. The reason in this case is that the PSOE did not pay the fees on time, a delay that the socialists attribute to the hacking of the municipal server that blocked their bank accounts.

“There is no going back,” concluded the mayor, the popular José Luis Sanz, a few days ago, after the PSOE announced that it was going to appeal to the courts. After the latest ruling by the TSJA, unless the council appeals, perhaps the mayor’s words will not be so firm. And the problem may arise as early as this month of April, because the winning family has requested the execution of the ruling to open booth 173, as this newspaper has learned.