The continuous legal clash that the Community of Madrid is involved in against the decisions of the Government of Spain has no end, and has already reached the measures adopted to combat the spread of the flu and other respiratory viruses: the Executive chaired by Isabel Díaz Ayuso has appealed to the National Court the order of the Ministry of Health that made the mask mandatory in health centers (hospitals and primary care) from January 10 until this Wednesday, when it ceased to have effect, according to a provision published in the Regional Bulletin .
Madrid has accumulated fifteen appeals against the decisions of the central Executive since 2019, when the current president came to power, and only in recent weeks has it opened legal fronts for the Tajo Hydrographic Plan or a contract to train the families that host supervised minors.
In any case, the processing of the order regarding masks raised blisters and protests among representatives of regions of all political stripes.
From its very beginning, it was assumed that it would end up in court, although, for now, only Madrid has appealed, according to a ministry spokesperson.
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“We rely on reports from legal services, and for two main reasons,” explained the spokesperson for the regional government, Miguel Ángel García, during a press conference.
“Firstly, at the meeting of the interterritorial council of the national health system (CISNS) on January 8, in which the Ministry proposed this measure, an agreement was not reached with the Autonomous Communities,” he began his list.
“[Secondly] this order does not justify the emergency situation that scientifically and technically supports the mandatory use of the mask and, therefore, that it can be imposed without that prior consensus of the Communities,” he continued.
“The ministry's order suffered from all of these issues,” he insisted.
“It was a completely improvised matter to try to hide the total inactivity of the Ministry during December and the first days of January.”
This is how Minister Mónica García responded to Madrid's decision.
“Using measures that are consensus, scientific, as a political tool is wrong,” Díaz Ayuso's former rival in the Assembly said in statements to RNE, where until the end of 2023 she led the Más Madrid opposition.
“The mask is a tool to protect health from a pandemic, after the pandemic we should have learned that it is the essential minimum,” she continued.
“I hope that the different Communities, and especially that of Madrid, think carefully about what we are talking about, and if they are going to use any measure beneficial to citizens as a legal weapon.
"We are going to continue to ensure the health of citizens in general, and of Madrid residents in particular."
However, protests against the way in which this measure was adopted were common to all regions, regardless of the party that governs them.
On Monday, January 8, the strong growth in respiratory virus infections (particularly influenza) began and led Health to call an extraordinary plenary session of the CISNS to propose making masks mandatory in health centers and hospitals.
Four autonomies were already applying this measure and the next day another two joined in, but the rest were in favor of limiting themselves to making a recommendation.
Even communities that agree with the substance - mandating the use of face masks in health centers - criticize the form.
They assure that the proposal was distributed after the meeting began, so a prior evaluation could not be carried out.
And that he skipped the usual procedures in these cases: a study by the Alerts Report - the group of community and ministry technicians who, for example, established the risk levels in the pandemic -, followed by a meeting of the Commission of Public Health - which is made up of the general directors of the matter - to issue a report.
The appeal announced this Wednesday joins other precedents in the health field for a similar reason: the use by the ministry of the declaration of coordinated actions.
Thus, two judicial proceedings filed by the Government of the Community of Madrid before the National Court against two Orders communicated by the Ministry of Health during the covid pandemic are currently pending sentencing.
One deals with the legality of the norm that in September 2020 approved the Declaration of Coordinated Actions in Public Health for covid.
It involved mobility restrictions in municipalities with more than 100,000 inhabitants in the region, including the city of Madrid.
With the second appeal, the Community of Madrid challenged the Order Communicated in March 2021 and which led to the perimeter closure in the majority of the autonomies, including Madrid, during the San José Bridge and Holy Week.
Since Ayuso came to power in August 2019, the Community has appealed fifteen state decisions in court.
Although the court has ruled in favor of Madrid on issues such as the VAT of December 2017, which brought an extra 300 million to the regional coffers, it has also rejected its claims regarding key issues such as the Baccalaureate curriculum or the tax on great fortunes, which the Constitutional Court endorsed.
The Government did not respond to this newspaper's request regarding the exact number of lawsuits registered since the current president took office, nor the result of these appeals.
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