The National Court orders the forced demolition of the Pedro J. Ramírez swimming pool in Mallorca

The National Court has settled the long controversy over journalist Pedro J. Ramírez's seaside pool in his villa in Costa de los Pinos, in the municipality of Son Servera (Mallorca).

The Contentious-Administrative Chamber has ordered the forced demolition of the pool after rejecting the execution incidents presented in October last year by the current director of

El Español

and his son, Tristán Jerónimo Ramírez, with which they intended to stop the demolition of the construction.

The judge rejects both incidents and orders compliance with the final ruling of the Supreme Court of May 2022, which disallowed the journalist's appeals to the ruling of the National Court of the previous year, which annulled the concession of the Ministry of the Environment to occupy the public domain during 60 years.

In an order advanced by the newspaper

Última Hora,

to which EL PAÍS has had access, the Ramírez family alleges against the resolution of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition, which in January 2023 urged the execution of the sentence and the demolition of the swimming pool within a period of six months.

The journalist then demanded the suspension of the deadline, alleging that the destruction of the pool, the pier and the terrace became an “irreversible act” whose forced execution could cause “very serious and irreparable damage” to the environment and neighboring properties.

His son presented another brief urging the concession to be maintained and demanded that the court take into consideration “the defensive function” of the pool and the surrounding pier to “mitigate the effects of climate change” and the consequences that the demolition could have for the stability of the home.

The judge rejects all their claims and recalls that the National Court overturned two resolutions of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment from 2014 and 2016, with the PP in the Government, which granted Pedro J. Ramírez

an

extension in the concession to occupy the public domain until the year 2074. “The parties now intend to open a new debate regarding a controversy that has already been tried and resolved in the main lawsuit and with respect to which the repeated final judgment has been issued,” maintains the magistrate, who argues that the parties cannot oppose the sentence in the execution phase “in order to try to distort its considerations.”

The court orders the journalist and his son to pay the procedural costs of the execution incident.

The long judicial process that has led to the imminent demolition order was promoted by activist Jaume Sastre, represented by lawyer Josep de Luis, who celebrates the resolution because he believes that it puts an end to a controversy generated two decades ago.

“The scenario that opens up now is that the Ministry of Energy Transition has no other option, in our view, than to begin the forced demolition that it agreed to in the execution of the sentence,” says the lawyer, who celebrates that “the law has been imposed” despite what he considers “peculiar” decisions of successive ministries for years that have later been revoked in court.

This latest resolution closes the door to the maintenance of the pool and exhausts judicial avenues.

A long controversy in society and the courts

The construction of the controversial swimming pool has followed a judicial journey of many years.

It was the center of controversy when in 2005 the national deputy of the Republican Left of Catalonia, Joan Puig, in a swimsuit and with his deputy's card in his mouth, accessed it along with a group of activists to demand public use of the land on those who settled next to the beach.

A group of people managed to jump into the pool and there were fights with private security guards who tried to prevent entry to the premises.

A year later, the decision of the Ministry of the Environment, then led by Cristina Narbona, to maintain private ownership of the pool led to the call for two demonstrations on the same day at the same time on the Sa Marjal beach in Costa de los Pinos, in front of the house of the former director of

El Mundo.

The first, called by different parties and entities such as the Lobby for Independence, Els Verds and the Balearic Ornithology Group, and the second, a counter-demonstration called on the other side of the beach by the Círculo Balear Cultural Society, chaired then by the now deputy Vox national, Jorge Campos.

Members of the New Generations of the PP also attended this demonstration and among those attending was the current president of the Government of the Balearic Islands, Marga Prohens, and the current president of the Consell de Mallorca, Llorenç Galmés.

The controversy started in 2001 with authorization from the Ministry of the Environment, then chaired by Jaume Matas (PP) to occupy the 350 square meters of public land currently occupied by the pool and the terrace on which it sits.

In 2006, after controversy over the entry into the house of activists demanding public use of the area, Minister Narbona proposed a plan for public use of the pool, with conditions.

It maintained the exclusive use of the pool for the journalist, on the condition that it be opened for a period of time each year for schoolchildren in the area.

The plan was never executed and the National Court, in 2009, annulled the suspension of public use of the pool during the summer and ruled against the purchase of the concession in the public domain by the journalist from the previous owner, to whom had been granted by the regional government in 2001. A sale, according to the National Court, prohibited by the Coastal Law of 1988. In 2013, two rulings from the Supreme Court ruled again that the pool was built in an area for public use and that its construction, that of the terrace and the masonry elements prevented passage and access along the coast, de facto privatizing the area.

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Keep reading

I am already a subscriber

_