Shooting oneself in the foot

This is the scenario: Judge Baltasar Garzón initiates an investigation into systematic corruption in the Partido Popular (PP) of Madrid and other important cities. Arrests are made and heavy bails are set. Plenty of PP bigwigs are allegedly involved, some of whom are aforados, including a President of an Autonomous Region governed by the PP and several national and regional deputies (and more to come, apparently).The excrement hits the fan and the PP, which is under its own investigation for spying among its own ranks in Madrid, is in retreat.


When you’re cornered, you attack, don’t you? Mariano Rajoy, the Leader of the Opposition, says that Garzón, who was once, for a short time, a high-up elected PSOE parliamentarian and now sits as one of sx judges on the National Criminal Court,  is persecuting his, Rajoy’s, party. Like manna from heaven, rather than excrement, for the PP, the Minister for Justice, Mariano Fernández Bermejo (PSOE, photo), is discovered to have gone on a weekend hunting jaunt with the famous Judge Garzón – not very cleverly at the northern Andalucía estate of a member of the PP. To make matters worse, the Minister of Justice did not have the right gun licence for Andalucía, so was hunting illegally.

This scenario turned out to be ideal for both parties: they are able to raise smokescreens of cross accusations instead of dealing with the economy, which neither party seems able to do. Indeed, the PP scored a victory today: Bermejo resigned his Ministry "but I will continue to work from my position as a Deputy". He had presented his resignation last week but Zapatero didn’t accept it. Until he had to, obviously (See my article: The need to be right, below.)

Bermejo was on a roll until then. He was ‘renovating’ the judicial system, which badly needs it. (The budget for this phase of the renovation is €20 million, and the budget for handing out free long-life light bulbs throughout the country is €40 million.) But he was not well liked by those he was supposed to be renovating: there have been strikes by court officials, court Secretaries and even an unprecedented and allegedly unconstitutional strike by judges. His successor is Francisco Caamaño, who is known as a deft negotiator and well respected. It will take a lot of negotiating to unravel this mess.

In the meantime, the PP licks its chops – though not for long if Garzón has his way. But then, they’re all in an electoral battle in Galicia and the Basque Region, so they may be otherwise occupied.

But one thing must be said: Bermejo is one of very few Spanish politicians to have resigned for a misdeed. This brings to mind the non-resignation of several PP ministers of the Aznar era, who should have resigned for much more serious things, including the mishandling of the Prestige environmental catastrophe, the Yak-42 aircraft accident that killed 62 Spanish soldiers on their way back from Afghanistan – or indeed, Aznar himself, who got his country into the Iraq disaster in the first place, though he was elected out before he could do any more damage.
(c) Alexander Bewick 2009

How rustic is your property?

The recent arrest of the Mayor of Alcaucín, Málaga, on corruption charges that include allowing building on terreno rústico, points the spotlight at a problem that is and has been recurrent certainly on the coasts if not all over Spain for a number of greedy years. Most of the buyers of holiday or retirement homes in these places are expats looking for a place in the sun. By expats I mean of any nationality, though in the most recent case in Alcaucín, they were mostly British.

The Spanish media is full of headlines on the subject. In Sunday’s edition of El País, an in depth analysis of this case had a separate item titled: Los residentes extranjeros, principales compradores (Foreign residents, the main buyers) in which the first paragraph reads: “They came to Spain for the sunshine and a garden they couldn’t afford in their home country. Their ignorance of the law and a lack of scruples on the part of builders, intermediaries and public officials did the rest.”

The article quotes a British buyer, “To us, rústico means rustic, of the countryside, not a synonym for land that can’t be built on.” And therein lies the crux.

The Junta de Andalucía and eight municipalities in the Almanzora area of Málaga, which contains Alcaucín, have counted over 3,000 homes built on terreno rústico an official designation that means You Can’t Build on It / Green Belt / No, No, No – or any other such approximation. But then, if your builder or developer knows his way around your local Town Hall, he may well have built on what is ‘about to become’ urbanizable land. How does he know that?

Many if not most of the smaller municipalities in Andalucía and other ’sunny’ places, are operating under a Plan General de Ordenación Urbana (PGOU in it Spanish acronym, roughly translatable to General Urban Ordination Plan – or Town Planning Regulations) that dates back to 1987 or thereabouts. Things have changed since then, of course, particularly during the Aznar years in government -but not always- when developers appeared to be able to do whatever they liked with few consequences that couldn’t be settled with a little finesse. The result is plain to anyone who has ever seen those vast developments on what would otherwise be open countryside. The photo that illustrates this article is a prime example in Seseña, Toledo, where there isn’t even a coastline and the massive development has naturally run into all kinds of trouble in the present economic climate. We don’t know how many expats might have bought there, but that, too, was built on a PGOU that is ‘in the process of change’, a change that has been conveniently a-changing since the 1980s but that allows for hefty ‘commissions’ to be had from those same developers and builders, many of whom are now in jail, or should be.

One question arises about these purchases, one that has arisen all too often over the years: When was the last time you bought a property in Britain (or anywhere else in the northern part of the EU, for that matter) without a proper survey being done beforehand? It is true, though, that a survey in Spain can be extremely dicey: Is the surveyor being paid by the developer? Are the proper documents easily available from the Town Hall? Can you trust the surveyor, and if you do, can you understand what he says? And if you’re working through an estate agent, how much do you know about him or her?

(c) Alexander Bewick 2009

Rotten apples of all colours

I’m not sure why my friend Prospero at JimenaPulse posted an item about corruption in the Axarquía region of Málaga, given that his blog is about the Campo de Gibraltar. The only connection I can think of is that similar charges are rife all over the area in which I live, too. Indeed, my other blogging friend, Sancho at Tilting at Windmills, has written extensively on the subject as well.

In any case, it is a fact that corruption charges are at the height of fashion right now. On the national scene, there is an ongoing scandal that has the Partido Popular (PP) and the PSOE (Socialists) flinging accusations at each other all over the media. The PP is under investigation by former PSOE minister Judge Baltasar Garzón, about which I wrote at length in the previous item. On a more local scale, there are several cases in various courts involving not only these two parties, but also the Partido Andalucista (PA); Ronda, Gaucín, Jimena, La Línea, Los Barrios and Algeciras are merely those that come immediately to mind.

Perhaps the re-resurgence of these cases has to do with the present global financial crisis. Or with the habit of all political parties of pointing fingers at each other as a way to avoid dealing with what really concerns the voters: unemployment (Spain has the highest in the EU at 14.8%), immigration (boatfulls of sub-Saharan refugees, many dead, keep turning up in the Canary Islands), etc. etc.

The trouble is that corruption affects each and every one of us, unlike those issues above that tend to be more selective. Corruption is present, in larger or smaller measure, in all aspects of our lives, in all countries and throughout history. Like prostitution, it is one of those things we tend to ignore until it touches us personally, as it were. But corruption is also a form of prostitution: in one of its definitions, the Oxford English dictionary says that a prostitute is “a person who debases himself or herself for personal gain.”

Prostitution in Spain is illegal but ignored to a large extent (Prospero posted an item that said that the sex industry has lost 20,000 direct or indirect jobs thanks to the crisis). Not so corruption, lately anyway. But then, smokescreens are useful political tools and there are rotten apples in every barrel. Somehow, I would almost say that prostitution is ‘cleaner’.

(c) Alexander Bewick 2009

As drunk as a judge

The story is out in Britain about Deputy District Judge Esther Cunningham (photo), who had to be escorted from court after kissing a solicitor, swearing at an usher and insulting a prosecutor while 'fortified' with brandy. This from a disciplinary tribunal that 'found it difficult to determine the correct sanction' according to The Telegraph.

Apparently, Cunningham caused uproar at a hearing in November, at which she was appearing as a solicitor, swaying and clutching a table to steady herself while interrupting proceedings. She also appeared drunk during a legal training course which she was conducting and spoke openly about wanting to punch the chairman of her legal governing body. Cunningham, 54, was banned from practising law for six months after admitting a series of charges including bringing the profession into disrepute. Six months in 'purgatory' might make this judge consider the fact that she needs help.

You don’t hear about drunk judges in Spain. Maybe there aren’t any.

On the other hand, you do hear about insulting disciplinary proceedings against judges who fail to serve arrest orders on convicted paedophiles. In one notorious case, Sevilla Judge Rafael Tirado was fined a mere €1500 (half the maximum fine, as set by his colleagues) -and never suspended from his courtroom- for failing to make sure that the alleged murderer of five-year-old Mariluz Cortés was sent to jail on prior charges of molesting his own daughter. Tirado has appealed the fine. His court secretary, however, was suspended 'without salary' for two years, even though the ultimate responsibility belongs to the judge, who is the secretary’s boss.

Meanwhile, the judges’ 'union' is threatening to strike all over Spain, rightly alleging that they are overwhelmed with work. Judging (forgive the pun) from the state of most of the country’s courtrooms, I’d have to agree with them. Amongst many other things, Spain’s judicial system, which has been notoriously inefficient for much too long, has never been fully ‘computerized’, leading to a mass of paperwork building up in every corner of court offices, desks, passageways and, in some cases, even the toilets – and, of course, leading to one of the slowest of such 'systems' in Europe.

Is there any comparison between these two items? You tell me.

(c) Alexander Bewick 2009

The right to know

Unlike almost every other country in Europe, Spain does not have what might be called a ‘transparency law’. Sweden has had one since 1766, but only Spain, Luxembourg, Greece and Cyprus don’t have one today, while Malta has put one into motion recently. There are 78 countries in the world with one but we can surely guess that Zimbabwe doesn’t and it wouldn’t require a much imagination to take a guess at a few more.

Severiano Fernández, professor of Administrative Law at the University of Cádiz, says, ”Spain wants to be a modern country but in these matters it lags well behind countries like Mexico.” Or even Guatemala, according to Access Info Europe, the Old Continent’s branch of an international organization that abrogates free access to information.

In a recent study that followed 41requests for information made to several different level public agencies, Access Info came to a devastating concluson: 78% of them did not receive the information requested. In some cases (43%) the information was actively denied and in another 43% there was no reply to the request at all.

So what is a ‘transparency law’? It simply gives the citizen the right to know what happens at, in or about government agencies and their activities. The agencies that taxpayers pay for, be they national, regional or local. It’s a Freedom of Information Act by another name.

In other words, in Spain we don’t have the right to know how our money is spent, how long a waiting list is at the hospital, how many soldiers are in the forces or how many Spanish casualties there have been in Afghanistan, or how many offices our Council is paying rent for, or what the cost of refurbishing them might be. If you’ve ever tried to find out any of these, or almost anything else, you’ll know what I mean.

The law of omertà is prevalent in Spain. The law of silence. Officials, secretaries, functionaries and their ilk have it down to a tee: their excuses for not giving information can be imaginative, but when that fails, there is always something called silencio informativo, or administrative silence. This is probably why letters to ministries, councils or official bodies of any kind remain unanswered. The lower the administrative ladder, the worse it gets. They must all believe they are the guardians of ‘official secrets’.

In most other countries with such a law, the time stipulated for a reply is 15 days. The Access Info report states that the average reply time in Spain (when there actually is a reply) is 38 days, though it uncovered too many cases where a reply had spent over 6 months ‘in the freezer’. Sweden is admittedly an exception, though certainly an admirable one: a reply must be made within 24 or 48 hours, depending on its urgency. By law. If the request is complex and needs a lot of searching, the person requiring it will get a phone call, within 24 hours, explaining the reason for the delay and giving an exact date for delivery. By law.

Strangely, the introduction of such a law was on the PSOE manifestos for the 2004 and 2008 elections. “Impulsaremos una ley sobre el derecho al libre acceso a la información que garantice que todos los poderes, autoridades públicas y entidades sostenidas con fondos públicos faciliten, en tiempo útil, el libre acceso a toda información o documento oficial, con la única excepción de lo que atente a la legislación de protección de datos o de secretos oficiales,” it said. “We shall propose a law on the right of free access to information that guarantees that all government agencies, authorities and entities maintained with public funds facilitate, in useful time, free access to all information or public document, with the only exception of that which attempts against the laws on data protection or official secrets.” We’re still waiting.

President Zapatero only mentioned it in passing some three weeks ago, probably because the Council of Europe is planning the first international treaty on this right at a convention that could be happening as soon as 2009.

It would be ironic if the convention was held in sunny Spain. Of course, we couldn’t find out how much it cost…

(c) Alexander Bewick 2008