Keeping the courts busy

Foreigners living here must be confused by the regular reports of denunciations of local mayors in the news. It isn't a practice that we were accustomed to back in England. When a local councillor appeared in court in England it was for something very serious. Here in Spain it can be for something which we would expect to be dealt with in the council chambers.

In the last three years the courts in Orihuela have dealt with about 30 different cases in relation to the management of the Orihuela and Bigastro Councils. These cases range from questions about city planning and the awarding of contracts to the irregular hiring of personnel. That doesn't include the 20 or so requests that the PP party in Bigastro have made through the courts for information from the mayor.

"El problema es que los mecanismos de control los controla el que tiene que ser controlado", says Aurelio Murcia. He is probably right; the self regulating systems of local government allow those in power to make decisions and to take actions without proper scrutiny. Eventually some of these decisions come back to haunt as in the case of illegal building. The sufferers then are the innocent people who trusted the local council rulings. I suspect though, that many of these wrong decisions simply get buried in history.

JOSÉ JOAQUÍN MOYA ESQUIVA, mayor of Bigastro, leaving court in Orihuela

The outcome of these judicial proceedings is rarely anything more than a photograph of the mayor either entering or leaving the court building. It is the way that opposition parties try to force a resignation of the elected mayor by wearing them down. For the people concerned it is harassment; for the perpetrators it is the only mechanism they feel they can use to resolve issues.

I can't help but feel that the whole process is very costly both in time and money; both precious commodities that these people can ill afford to waste.