LR/Ef.| The Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) confirmed this week the sentence that prohibits holding the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Day Carnival in the historic neighborhood of vegetaby considering proven not only the inconvenience it generates to the neighbors, but also that some of them, mainly noise, cannot be corrected.
Luis Trujillo, of Baltia Lawyersaddressed this matter this Friday in the program ‘Good Morning Canary Islands‘, from Atlántico Radio, presented by Willy García and Gara García. “The sentence is the result of a concrete action by citizens who request not only moral damages for a specific act, which is the Day Carnival of the years 2019 and 2020, but also request that it be moved to another place because they understand that it is not they can take corrective measures in any way,” he said. However, he recalled that the “ruling is not final”, so the capital’s City Council could go to the Supreme Court (TS).
Can the same thing happen with the Day Carnival in Santa Cruz de Tenerife? Trujillo thinks that the specific case should be studied, but he believes that “if there is a group of neighbors that organizes and demands compensation for this matter, they could find themselves with a sentence that condemns the Santa Cruz City Council”, although “everything is debatable”.
Provisional suspension in 2007
In 2006, a group of residents from the center of the capital of Tenerife requested the suspension of Carnival events in the streets for that same year and the following year, due to the inconvenience caused by noise. The request was denied. But in 2007 they tried again and in the first instance achieved the precautionary suspension of musical events in the street. However, just a few days later, the same court issued a new order in which it lifted said measure, alleging that it had already been resolved the previous year by the TSJC, thus agreeing with the City Council.
The decision of the Canarian High Court regarding the celebration of the Daytime Carnival of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in the Vegueta neighborhood opens a new debate and could give wings to the residents of the center of the chicharrera capital. In fact, Luis Trujillo points out that “the arguments used in the sentence make me think that the case could occur in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, perfectly.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s one against a million”
According to the lawyer, “the Las Palmas ruling ends up asking, in my opinion, whether certain fundamental rights, such as physical and moral integrity or personal and family privacy, can be violated by an administrative decision, no matter how compelling reasons such as cultural projection, tradition and even economic impact”.
He explained that “both prosecutions come to the conclusion that exceptions cannot be made in the protection of the fundamental rights of citizens, in this case with the right to rest.”
Asked about the necessary number of people to carry out a petition of this type in the courts, Trujillo clarified that “if a fundamental right is violated, which I believe is the core of this issue, that citizen must be protected. It does not matter that he is one against a million ”.
