SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 23 Sep. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) has revoked the judgment of first instance that in July 2019, upholding an appeal by the Ben Magec Ecologist Federation, declared null the concession of public utility mount to the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC ) for the construction of the thirty meter telescope.
The Administrative Litigation Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC), at its headquarters in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, has upheld the appeal filed by the Cabildo de La Palma, the entity Tirthy Meter Telescope International Observatory Limited Liability Company and the Instituto Astrofísico de Canarias (IAC) against the ruling issued by the court on July 29, 2019, and has endorsed the concession by taking into consideration, among other issues, the present general interest and the nature of the IAC’s public law consortium.
In the ruling, the Chamber examines the legality of the administrative concession to the Astrophysical Institute of the Canary Islands (IAC) for the private use (occupation) of public forest number 28 of the Catalog of Forests of Public Utility in an area of 9.8 hectares of the catalog of Forests of Public Utility called Pinar de las Ánimas and Juanianes, owned by the City Council of Puntagorda.
Specifically, it is the extension of the surface, outside the current perimeter of the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, due to the possible location of an Astrophysical Observatory for scientific research.
The Chamber takes into consideration that the IAC is a public law consortium regulated in Additional Provision twenty-seven of Law 14/2011, of June 1, on Science, Technology and Innovation, with powers to administer the centers, observatories and existing astronomical facilities and those that in the future are created or incorporated into its administration, not subject to the facilities being its property (the means of the consortium, both those assigned or assigned in any other regime by personnel or national or foreign entities that retain their ownership over them).
The Court understands that the IAC had legitimacy to request the concession directly.
The agreement signed between the IAC and Thirty Meter Telescope International Observatory Limited Liability Company on March 29, 2017, ratified by the Governing Council of the IAC in July 2017 and extended in February 2018, was postponed until the conditions in collected , but it is valid and is sufficient title to start obtaining the necessary government authorizations, including the concession for the expansion of the surface of the Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory.
Remember the sentence that the project for the 30-meter telescope was declared an investment of strategic interest for the Canary Islands by the regional government through an agreement of August 1, 2016, the TSJC points out in a note.
SUPPORT OF CONGRESS AND PARLIAMENT
In addition, the Plenary Session of the Congress of Deputies, in its session on November 15, 2016, approved an institutional declaration of support for the construction of the TMT, and again approved a new institutional declaration of support for the installation on September 17, 2016. 2019.
It continues by pointing out the ruling that the Parliament of the Canary Islands, in a plenary session on September 10 and 11, 2019, approved the Institutional Declaration of support for the TMT in La Palma, and the Eighteenth Additional Provision of Law 4/2017, of Land of The Canary Islands declared the scientific activity carried out in the astrophysical observatories of the Canary Islands to be of general regional interest, both within the framework of the international agreement of 1979 and within the framework of “any other agreements and conventions” signed or to be signed subsequently for the same purpose by the competent administrations.
In the Chamber’s opinion, the general interest present in the process and the nature of the IAC’s Public Law Consortium justify the direct award of the concession, insofar as it is necessary to fulfill a public service function or to carry out a purpose of general interest.
The demanial concession is the essential patrimonial title to dispose of public land, allowing its occupation, continues the TSJC, leaving out of the examination of its legality the issues of an urban and environmental nature that are not included in the files of processing demanial concessions or the acts that grant them address these issues.
The ruling, however, is still subject to appeal.
