d
Libra - scales of
(blindfolded)
Justice!
70-year-old Manuel Hernández Illán spent the greater part of his adult life working as an immigrant bricklayer in France. Towards the end of 1963 he and one of his brothers-in-law bought 3,045 square metres of land in Redován a town in Alicante province. It was originally rural land, later reclassified as urban. The property was delimited, deeds were drawn up and it was entered in the Property Register as No. 1611.
(A plan showing the property and its limits).
In 1967 Manuel Medina Ros, a well-known wine merchant and Miguel Media Gómez, became interested in purchasing the property but no agreement was reached. The next year they founded the company Maria Ros S. A. and presented Building Project 210 to Redován town hall, showing part of Sr. Hernandez Illán’s property with 7 plots on it. They planned to later sell the plots (on someone else’s property), taking advantage of one of the owner’s absence while working in France, without town hall notifying the legal owners.
Manuel Medina Ros, known in Redován as “El Morrongo” (the Alley Cat) executed part of the design of Plan 210 In April, July and August 1981 he began selling 3 plots, each measuring 150 square metres. Deeds were drawn up and the properties entered in the Property Register as Nos. 3162, 3325 and 3073. With the town hall’s blessing and despite due warning of irregularities, he built houses on 2 of them. Plot No. 3325 was “returned” to Maria Ros S. A., according to a note in the Property Register dated 11th March 1994. The buyer had been warned of the irregularity of the sale. The entries in the Register show that the separation of Plot 335, property of Maria Ros S. A. was really an alienation of Manuel’s and his relative’s property.
The irregularity was reported to the relevant authorities. Legal proceedings were started in 1987 and an Orihuela court issued a sentence on 19.10.1989. The offender was ordered “to leave the land built on free and clear”. Justice with a capital letter was done by this sentence. The archived document reads: “These court proceedings both parties are in agreement that it is on the following plot (a description follows) that an edifice built.”
(Photocopy of the extract of the sentence).
But look at the sentence given in the appeal heard before the Provincial High Court - 3 blessed judges juggled the Orihuela judge’s phrase “an undoubted act” which became diffuse and confused after their three Honours meddled. The sentence now read “Only titles, not actual properties are entered in the Property Register for which reason it is necessary to accredit something as essential as the identity of the object, if not, the registered entry remains without content.”
(Photocopy of extract of the sentence where the names of the judges appear).
So their Honours of the Provincial High Court unchallenged, revoked the sentence of judge Moreno Hellín; they declared that that the land referred to would not be left free and clear. Reality turned into nightmare. It was the 5th of April 1990.
This begs the questions: What did Manuel Illán’s lawyer do after sentence was given a second time? Although there could be no appeal “according to Article 245 of the Organic Law of Judicial Authority”, was all judicial action really closed? If not, why was no attempt made to settle by other means? If the second sentence really closed every possibility of an appeal, what sort of justice is this which allows “errors” resulting in usurpation of a legal owner’s property without legitimate defence i.e. appealing against the sentence of a higher court?
What is certain is that the lawyer Murcia Conesa “did not inform his clients about the sentence with due speed” and “put many obstacles in the way of handing over documents” and finally after many visits “this was not done completely”. On 4th February 1991, the lawyer told Manuel of his resignation from the Orihuela Law Society and the impossibility of attending to his affairs, saying “he and Francisco Cartagena Martínez should look for another lawyer to defend their interests.”
(Photocopy of Manuel Hernández Illán’s complaint to the Orihuela Law Society).
“El Morrongo” the Alley Cat spared no effort to carry out his plans. 1991 passed. Manuel was fencing his land when, incited by Maria Ros S.A., Miguel Monera Nuñez (purchaser of Plot 3073) came with another individual and violently assaulted Manuel causing lesions in cervical vertebrae so that he had to be attended to in the District Hospital. The complaint No. 134/93 submitted to the police court was closed with a sentence of lack of proof and the plaintiff non-appearing at the hearing. The proof was crystal clear; there was aggression, giving rise to lesions but those who saw the deed feared reprisals if they came forward as witnesses. The plaintiff did not appear in court because the citation was made when he was in his habitual residence in France.
(Photo of Manuel in his surgical collar).
But let’s return to Plan 210 and the sale of another’s land. In view of the resounding success of the “operation” and its judicial approval; on 31st August 1992, Manuel Medina Ros, the well-known business man and wine merchant, publicly declared “his intention to compensate Manuel Hernández Illán in good faith (!), for the metres of land which he appropriated.” He recognised that he had sold 206 square metres of land which were not his property (the 3 plots sold actually measured 430 square metres) and declared - with singular daring - that he would pay the owner of the land what his lawyer considered a fair price and not what Hernández Illán could asked him.
No fiscal echoed his ridiculous declaration,
no judge asked this businessman where the hundreds of square metres sold had
gone, no lawyer with knowledge of the case asked for a review, the judicial
institutions demonstrated once more how they ignored fairness and restraint,
only their blindness regarding the partiality of those sitting in judgement.
On 15th August 1992, Manuel and his family returned to Redován plead for justice. Medina Ros assaulted Manuel, pushed him down to the ground, causing lesions to his hand and left elbow. A complaint was made on 17th August but the case was filed by Judge Marcos de Alba y Vega; it ended again with an absolute sentence “for lack of an accusation”. Neither Manuel nor his family could go to the hearing to appeal against the sentence because the notification was sent to their house in Redován by means of a notice in the Official Provincial Bulletin because the judge considered the plaintiff’s “address was unknown”.
(Copy of the request to the local council to publish the convening the hearing in the Official Provincial Bulletin and Judge Marcos de Alba’s edict to notify the sentence “address unknown” underlined).
Marcos de Alba could not have been ignorant of the judgement made by the Justice of the Peace in Redován, Ballester Prieto, at a hearing on 21st September 1993 in which he notes the following case).
In March 1994 another offence was added to those already committed. Miguel Monera sold Plot 3075 to Maria Antonia Gómez Martínez and José Antonio Ruiz Domenech, who, despite having been warned about the illegality of their purchase but knowing that the minnow had been totally abandoned to his fate by the local and judicial authorities and being swallowed up by the whale, launched themselves into the task of building another house next to the existing one.
(Copy of the deed sent by the lawyer Agustín Grau Adsuar to Sra Gómez Martínez on 26th July 1994).
What did the town hall do to stop them
committing this new outrage? Did the
mayor not know of Morrongo the alley cat’s public declarations in 2 documents,
the first dated 14th June 1994 showing that one of Manuel’s sons
paid the tax for requesting a licence to fence his father’s land and the second
being the mayor Ricardo Ruiz Poveda’s thundering reply, ordering immediate
suspension of the work (16th June 1994).
At the request of Manuel’s wife, Maria Medina Martinez, 2 court cases were heard about building the second house - the first on in July 1995, the second in February 1997. Neither sentence took into account the fact that the land in litigation, Plot 1611, formed part of Plot 333, which land could not be segregated from Plot 3075 which formed part of Plot 335, nor did they take into account the aggravation of “bad faith”. Once again, the courts’ magic succeeded in concealing the categorical affirmation of Judge Moreno Hellín, underlining the fact that both parties agreed to recognise building one house on the land which the Hernandez family b ought in 1963.
Morrongo the Alley Cat’s declarations
recognising the sale of another’s land meant nothing, the public mechanisms of
citizens’ defence lay strewn all over the floor. A miasma of Suspicion of prevarication and bribery hovered over
the local and judicial authorities.
What level of harassment was Manuel subjected to so that on 6th of June 1994 he decided to flee from Redován? On the 4th June that year the beaten immigrant wanted to stop a mechanical digger entering his land; the driver of which was accompanied by a local policeman called Antonio Ruiz Hernández. They called a civil guard without whom they could nothing. One of Manuel’s nephews took a video of the confrontation with the security forces. Manuel showed the guards the deed of the property but the machine went on working. This video was used in a national television programme - a “reality show” to which Manuel’s family came to try and find out where he was.
After 2 days of tension, shattered by circumstances, the old bricklayer was in his house, pondering upon what had happened, when he heard a thundering knock on the door. Speechless with stupefaction, Manuel peeped through a crack in the blind. He saw two civil guards and a municipal policeman called Ramón with a pair of handcuffs in his hand. The securities forces that are supposed defend, help and assist him were threatening to detain him instead. He feared for his life. That very night he decided to escape, abandoning his family, his home, his property and his car.
On 11th June Manuel Hernández Medina (Manuel’s son) reported his father’s disappearance and on the 13th submitted a complaint alleging fraud against Redován town council - which had no effect whatsoever.
Until 12th September, Hernández Illán wandered abut Europe, telling his story to whoever would listen. He asked for help from different organisations in various countries; including the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Court. He visited newspaper offices and radio stations. He explained that in his country, Spain, judges and fiscals, lawyers, mayors and the Opposition Party took no notice of his pleas for protection against the persecution and plunder he was experiencing.
In view of such slights and what to him could very well be a conspiracy, Manuel threw caution to the winds and with his scarce resources, launched himself into the arduous task of showing the corrupt practices hidden behind Redovan’s town planning.
This was his “crime”. The public announcements of a man stripped of his property, with the blessing of the local authorities and the approval of the courts, the creepy crawlies uncovered, letting him be usurped, beaten, harmed and forcing him to submit many complaints of criminal behaviour, slander and libel to the courts. He has been arrested, taken to court, condemned, fined - he is being judged by the effects without the causes of provocation being taking into account. The citizen is gagged to choke his legitimate protests. It does not matter if some sharp words are found in his arguments. For appearance sake, punish him and take no account of hidden artifice - the usurpers’ impunity.