Yes, there will be an April Fair for members who have lost their booths due to two sentences

The 70 families who have recently been dispossessed of the three booths at the Seville fairgrounds that they had been enjoying since 2022, by virtue of two rulings from the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA) that have returned them to their previous owner, You will be able to enjoy this year's April Fair. This has been decided by the judges of the Andalusian high court, who have rejected the provisional execution that the party that won the lawsuits had requested because they understood that “the imminence of the celebration” of the event – ​​it begins on April 14 – would cause “irreparable harm.” to current partners. These have already paid the mandatory fees for the renewal of the use of the venues and have made the financial outlay required for preparations for assembly, bar, security or musical performances.

“This year at the moment we are calm,” Rafael Labat, lawyer and partner of booth 173, explains to this newspaper. Labat is less sure of what may happen next. The ruling that takes away their booth is susceptible to being appealed in cassation before the Supreme Court, a step that the owners of all the affected modules are waiting for the City Council to take because that would make it easier for them to litigate before the high court. The council has not yet confirmed that it will do so. “If an appeal is made, I do not believe that the resolution will be before the next fair, in which case, if provisional execution is requested again, the City Council would have to see how it resolves,” adds the lawyer.

The magistrates who make up the Third Section of the Administrative Litigation Chamber of the TSJA in Seville - the same ones who handed down the first sentence that returned booth 173 on Juan Belmonte Street to its previous owners - agree in this case with the City Council and the members of the booth for two years. The Seville town council was the one who in 2022 dispossessed the appellant family of the three-module booth for not having submitted the renewal of the license within the period provided for in the Municipal Ordinance that regulates the April Fair (OMFA), and distributed it among three members who were on the waiting list to obtain a booth. To now avoid the execution of the ruling, the City Council alleged procedural issues, such as that the court lacked jurisdiction to resolve and that it could not be executed due to the pending appeal before the Supreme Court.

The local administration also raised substantive issues. Among them, that booth 173 on Juan Belmonte Street was awarded to the entity that corresponded to it according to the waiting list, that had renewed its application and paid the fees for this year's fair, that "at this time of the year the booth holders have already concluded all the necessary contracts for the event” and that “the departure of said entity would cause obvious serious damage, since it would have to resolve all those contracts and commitments, with the corresponding legal and economic consequences.” The lawyer representing that booth argued, along the same lines, that in the official resolution of the City Council officially published on March 4, 2024, they appeared as holders of the municipal license and estimated the expenses generated and already committed at 40,000 euros. He also recalled that the economic damage would not only affect the three booths that are the subject of litigation, but also the eight that were awarded in 2023 and that had to give up their position for the benefit of the aforementioned three booths.

The family that requested the provisional execution argued, for its part, that it had already "borne the personal harm of not having had the fair booth at its disposal in recent years." The court rejects the procedural arguments of the council and the owners of booth 173, but does admit that the provisional execution would “cause irreparable collateral damage at the current date” and points out that this measure cannot be agreed “when it is susceptible to produce irreversible situations or damages that are impossible to repair.”

The ruling only refers to booth 173, the first to receive the ruling that agreed to return ownership to the previous owner family, issued on February 22, and the only one for which provisional execution has been requested, as confirmed by the lawyers for the other two booths, 175 and 177, who received a ruling in similar terms, although issued by another section, on March 13. In the first ruling, the family that had lost its booth in 2022 was in favor for not having submitted the renewal of the license within the established period, alleging that the City Council, during the years of the pandemic in which there was no fair, suspended the stipulated deadlines for carrying out the procedures, and promised to inform of the new deadlines electronically.

The TSJA considers that the council “misled” this family. “The express declaration of the Administration that it will make this communication by email cannot be ignored or withdrawn unless it contradicts and violates the doctrine of proper acts,” the judges noted. To the City Council's allegation that the loss of the booth was due to the negligence of the former owner, since the rest of the holders of the fair booths had renewed in a timely manner, the court responded that "the fact of The fact that there are a tiny number of applicants who have not followed the foreseeable payment behavior in the new period, compared to those who overwhelmingly have, does not detract from the fact that the appellant may have suffered from an error generated by the Administration.

Possible solution

Weeks later, the section that had to resolve the appeals filed on booths 175 and 177 - different from the one dictated by the previous one, but in which the same speaker, Victoriano Valpuesta, was present - adhered to the same arguments to rule against of the current owners. A circumstance that could create precedents and favor the recovery of booths for families who lost them during the pandemic for submitting fee payments or renewing licenses late.

“We are going to try to ensure that next year we can continue enjoying the booth,” explains a member of Juan Belmonte 177, who would also benefit from the rejection of the provisional execution requested for her neighbors on 173. While they wait to see If the City Council appeals to the Supreme Court, Labat considers different scenarios for the 2025 fair. Among them, in the event that the cassation has not been resolved or that appeal is not successful, it is considering the option of the council granting them one of the 300 booths with which the mayor has committed to expanding the fairgrounds, precisely to eliminate waiting lists of an average of 30 years. “We have talked about it with the City Council, but we don't know anything,” he says. Although with a look to the future, what we have to do now is to hurry up this fair.

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