The juridical services of the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council they do not have nothing to say to the mayor of the city, Jose Manuel Bermudez (Canary Coalition), regarding its solemn public request fifteen days ago to “explore any possible judicial avenue within our reach to fight” against the Amnesty Law that is being processed in the Congress of Deputies at the initiative of the PSOE. And since they have nothing to say to him, the council lawyers have chosen not to respond because, simply, no city council in Spain has either powers or legislative capacity or the right to veto or formulate a prior question of unconstitutionality regarding an initiative that is processed in the General cuts.
The petition was publicly launched by Mayor Bermúdez on the 15th, in a solemn institutional appearance with a lectern and flags, based on a motion approved by the plenary session of the Corporation with the votes in favor of the Canarian Coalition, the Popular Party and Vox and the only negative of the majority force, the PSOE. In that motion, the three center-right parties cried out against the breakup of Spain and in favor of the Constitution and democracy.
“I have signed an instruction so that, immediately, the Legal Services of this City Council explore any possible judicial avenue within our reach to fight against this law. That is, prevent it from being processed, because it is illegal, or from being applied, because it is illegal,” said José Manuel Bermúdez.
After the legal deadlines for the Legal Services to respond to the mayor, there has been no response, at least until this Wednesday, the last consultation reported by this newspaper. Nobody in that department gets on the phone, but the City Council downplays the expiration of the response deadlines without a response, five business days, since, in their opinion, they only operate “on reports assessed in administrative procedures, and this is not the case”. But no one is betting that there will be a statement that minimally satisfies the desires for a legal war that the mayor insinuated that he intended to wage.
And regarding the consultation itself, Bermúdez defends himself, through his Press Office, maintaining that “he has the power to directly consult the Legal Services on those matters that he considers necessary, in this case, in addition, there was a plenary agreement of the Santa Cruz City Council to reject the Amnesty Law, which was approved by the vote of CC, PP and Vox, and only with the vote against the PSOE. With this consultation, to some extent I was following the expression of a rejection that the Plenary had already expressed,” the official sources consulted have said verbatim.
José Manuel Bermúdez has become the loudest voice of the Canary Coalition against the amnesty promoted within the agreements between the PSOE and Junts, although it is true that there are more within the party like his, in reality dissatisfied with the fact that the only deputy who have in Congress, Cristina Valido, has voted favorably for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez and has signed an investiture agreement with the PSOE in exchange for respect and compliance with the so-called Canarian agenda.
In reality, the mayor of the Tenerife capital is trying to position himself in a complex ecosystem in which he has to, on the one hand, become strong within his own party to achieve his goal of getting out of the seemingly eternal wheel of being mayor or mayor, and on the other, winking at his local clientele, with a markedly conservative ideology, whom he tries to please with ideas such as his staging, as institutional as it is useless, against the amnesty.
It is not trivial that Bermúdez has the sad honor of running one of the Spanish cities with the most Francoist vestiges in Spain (79) thanks to his resistance to removing them even through judicial appeals against the catalog that betrays him.
It was precisely that issue that motivated the mayor’s only request for a report from the City Council’s Legal Services in the last three years, as reported by the City Council. It was in 2022 and from there an appeal arose in order to paralyze the approval of the Catalog of Francoist Relics prepared by a group of experts appointed by the Government of the Canary Islands. The mayor announced that he was appealing because he considered that he was only aimed at attacking Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
