The City Council of Sant Julià de Ramis (Gironès) opens a new way to recover the money looted by the Franco regime through the Democratic Memory Law. After the Supreme Court (TS) dismissed the appeal filed by the consistory and the legal battle ended in deadlock, the lawyers from the Delso Quintana law firm, which advises the City Council, have found a gap through the regulations approved by the Status in October 2022.
The law sets a period of one year to collect data for a hearing to quantify the damage caused by the dictatorship. The City Council will record the 136,000 euros of looting that they have quantified and also offer to convey the private claims of the heirs that have been located.
Specifically, the lawyers focus attention on article 31 of the draft, which literally “recognizes the right to compensation for confiscated assets and economic sanctions produced for political, ideological, conscience and religious reasons during the Civil War and the dictatorship”. As explained by the lawyer Antoni Quintana, the text stresses that within a year from the law coming into force, the State will audit the assets looted by Francoism.
Quintana specifies that it not only includes paper money, as is the case of Sant Julià , but also works of art and even buildings. The lawyer explains that, when the audit is a fact, the Democratic Memory Law also specifies that “possible ways of recognizing those affected will be implemented.”
From here, the City Council will enter an instance before the General Sub-Directorate for Aid to Victims of the Civil War and the Dictatorship where the money that the Franco regime looted from the council will be recorded. In this case, more than 136,000 euros.
But not only that, but the consistory has also offered to convey the particular demands of these neighbors from whom the Franco regime expropriated the money issued by the Republic. And with which later castings were made. In Sant Julià , added to the money from the consistory, 818,684.50 pesetas of the time were delivered, which would be equivalent to 11.38 million euros.
The mayor of Sant Julià de Ramis advances that the City Council will adhere to the initiative, and in parallel will support the heirs of the affected residents so that they can join. In this case, the petitions have to be entered in a personal capacity to carry out the processing” through the lawyers.
Mayor Marc Puigtió explains that, although not all the heirs of the City Council’s list of looted money have been located, they have found quite a few. “After the judicial process was denied and we believe that the afer no longer had a long way to go, we want to take advantage of this new opportunity,” he underlines.
The path that opens up now will be long, but the Sant Julià de Ramis City Council is determined to try everything to obtain the restitution of the money looted by the dictatorship. Puigtió already admits that they considered “an injustice” that the Supreme Court overthrew the dispute that they had filed and that, therefore, “we have to take advantage of the path that is now opening up.”
Precisely now, a year has passed since the Supreme Court ruling that rejected the appeal by the City Council for the return of the looted money. After the Council of Ministers denied the request, the consistory decided to appeal to the high court. He demanded that the State return the more than 136,000 euros that the dictatorship confiscated from the City Council, and which were melted down.
The dispute was filed by the consistory for two reasons: to expedite the case and because if justice agreed with them, the families of the town who wanted to claim the money would also have jurisprudence to rely on.
As it did in 2017 with another case, the high court concluded that the claim had expired. And that, in any case, it made reference to a “pre-constitutional rule that is no longer in force.” From then on, the Sant Julià de Ramis City Council gave up resorting to the courts because Strasbourg had already dismissed other similar cases.