The courts seldom agree with the taxpayers regarding the penalties imposed. However, there are cases, such as that of the journalist Juan Ayala, in which they not only agree with him, but also impose the payment of costs to the defendant (300 euros), in this case to the Santa Cruz City Council. The ruling, which dates from 2019, estimates that the fine imposed by the Public Services area for placing advertising on public roads in a place not authorized to do so does not comply with the law. The problem is that, far from ending the course of the sanction with the judicial ruling, which is not appealable, in May of this year, the City Council requested the payment of the same fine, already annulled, by way of pressure. “The internal disaster in that City Council is unusual” laments the journalist who has seen that having a ruling in his favor is not enough for the City Council to stop claiming the debt. The affected party has filed an appeal for reversal.
From the Treasury area he referred to this medium that, if things were as Ayala tells them, it must be an error, and that they are at the entire disposal of the affected person to clarify it. However, they also clarify that this is not a collection problem, since it must be the area that imposed the fine, in this case Public Services, which proceeds to cancel the fine, and therefore withdraw the request for collection of the system.
This sanction dates back to the demonstration against the Canary Islands Land Law that was held in 2016. As Ayala himself explained in an article published in 2019, after hearing the sentence “although the court ruling is based on the concurrence of a series of Irregularities in the processing of the file that directly affect the appellant’s right of defense, even without considering his allegations, I consider that this is the logical result of a whole set-up in which two local police officers are implicated as direct authors, who sign three acts of infringement; the Municipal Police Commissioner, who transfers said acts to the Community Welfare and Public Services area, and, especially, the delegate councilor of said area, who orders the initiation of the disciplinary proceedings (…) ”. As Ayala defended then, and continues to do so now, “what retaliated my spirits (…) was not the amount of it (60 euros), but the outrage and abuse of power displayed by municipal officials, that they confuse the City Council with their private estate … “
