The Constitutional Court has confirmed the Decree Law adopted in 2020 by the Government of the Region of Murcia to restore and protect the Mar Menor. The government brought the lawsuit against the regulations, which amended an autonomous law of the same year and whose aim was to give more powers to the community itself. However, the central executive felt that they were encroaching on the powers of the state.
The norm aimed at more effective control of illegal irrigation and its impact on environmental protection and was approved with the votes of PSOE, PP and Ciudadanos. The new legislation stipulated that these irrigations would be restored to a “natural state” so that the irrigation systems established and the crops they created would be suppressed. The government of Murcia – already chaired by Fernando López Miras (PP), now in a coalition with Vox – considered it necessary, for reasons of urgency, to reform the law itself by decree, given the “critical” ecological situation in the region.
The judgment – at which Judge Ramón Sáez, from the progressive sector of the court, appeared as speaker – explains that the contested regulations were approved in order to clarify certain technical-procedural points of the already existing autonomous regulation and that the purpose of the Decree read: “Accelerate the processing of crop return files, which represent one of the central instruments of the regional policy to protect the Mar Menor from the discharge of nutrients of agricultural origin.”
The unanimously adopted ruling dismisses the appeal in its entirety and concludes that the challenged provisions and subsections are consistent with the requirement to “provide a budget for emergency legislation.” The government’s request, on the other hand, assumed that there was no situation of “extraordinary and urgent necessity” that requires both regional legislation and the Constitution itself to act through a legislative decree.
The executive also accused the autonomous initiative of encroaching on the state’s powers over legislation, resource management and water use when waters flow through more than one autonomous community. He also claimed that the rules of the common administrative procedure had been changed.
The court rejected these arguments, pointing out that, apart from the urgency of the regulations adopted, the regional government defined the situation “explicitly, substantiatedly and by a precise reference to a specific environmental situation requiring a rapid response”. (the critical situation of the ecological state of the Mar Menor, aggravated by a severe episode of hypoxia since August 16, 2021), a situation with which the measures taken have an obvious context of meaning.
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The autonomous executive describes the verdict as a “blow for the Spanish government”.
E.P
The spokesman for the regional executive, Marcos Ortuño, explained this Wednesday: “The verdict shows that the government of Fernando López Miras always acts rigorously and in accordance with the law, with the primary aim of defending the Mar Menor.” The Constitutional Court “exposes the government of Pedro Sánchez,” Ortuño added, and it is “clear once again that it is only exploiting the Mar Menor politically.” In short: “It is a serious blow to the Spanish government because it has not fulfilled its obligations.” In any case, the regional government “will continue to work to protect the Mar Menor and demand that the Spanish government live up to its responsibilities.” , concluded Marcos Ortuño.
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