The monumental complex of wall hanger It is not integrated into National Heritage, but rather Its original ownership belongs to the Foundation of the Holy Cross of the Valley of the Fallen. Patrimony only manages and administers the venue. And, in any case, in accordance with the Spanish Historical Heritage Law, the autonomous communities have the authority to declare BIC that property that, being located in their territory, enjoys historical or cultural value, provided that the regional Government has assumed in its statutes this power, what happens in this case. This is the summary of the approach of the Association for the Defense of the Valley of the Fallen (ADVC) in order for the Community of Madridinitiates a file as an Asset of Cultural Interest. Meanwhile, a royal decree provided for in the Democratic Memory Law will soon convert the complex into State heritage, in whose hands its fate would be sealed.
The ADVC insists in a letter addressed to the Deputy Minister of Culture, Tourism and Sports that the regional government has the authority to initiate and resolve the BIC declaration, as opposed to its dismissal decision dated February 12in response to the request of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid, to which the association had appealed.
The ADVC assures in the text, to which LA RAZÓN has had access, that it cannot “share the criteria of the appealed resolution, which denies said jurisdiction because it considers that the Valley of the Fallen is part of the National Heritage.” First, because It is not true that the monumental complex is an asset integrated into the National Heritage and ownership of said body.
“Property”, as was already proposed to the regional government, “continues to correspond to the Foundation of the Holy Cross of the Valley of the Fallen”, according to “it appears in the Property Registry number 2 of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, where the property is registered.” So that “the integration” of the site “into the State Heritage,” explains the president of the entity, Pablo Linares, “it would require a royal decree that has not been issued”. Specific, “It will be what article 54.6 of Law 20/2022, of October 19, on Democratic Memory now alludes to, will lead to the extinction of the Foundation, and will determine the legal framework and property regime of the Valley of the Fallen.”
As the association has already stated in previous petitions, “the fact that the Board of Trustees is de facto exercised by National Heritage and continues to be exercised” (until the royal decree is issued), “in no way affects the property regime of the assets of the Foundation.”
In relation to this point, reference is made to a report from the Directorate of the State Legal Service that dates from June 3, 1996 and reads as follows: “(…) both in historical and current law, the repeated rights of patronage entail the powers of administration of the respective foundations, but not the ownership of their assets.”
And a practical example is given from August 13, 1998, “in reference to the procedure (…) for the dispossession and disposal of a 20,000 m2 plot located in the complex of the Valley of the Fallen”, eloquent in its terms: “The property called “Valle de Cuelgamuros” (as well as all its buildings, land and accessory rights), with which the Decree-Law of August 23, 1957 endowed the Foundation of the Santa Cruz del Valle de los Caídos and of which the 20,000 m2 plot forms part, the disposal of which motivates the consultation to which this report responds, It is not integrated into the National Heritage. Its ownership corresponds exclusively to the aforementioned Foundation.
Thus, “the attribution to the State of jurisdiction” for the BIC declaration “cannot be sustained on the basis that the Valley of the Fallen is an asset that forms part of the National Heritage”, nor “could it be based on the fact that “is a good assigned to public services managed by the State Administration”, since “It is neither a property assigned to any public service, nor is it managed by the State Administration, but rather by the Board of Trustees of the Foundation that owns the property, without prejudice to the fact that said Board of Trustees is made up of the National Heritage Administration Council.as it could be by other people or entities, public or private.
But “even if the Valley of the Fallen were an asset assigned to public services managed by the State Administration” – as a mere hypothesis – “it would not be possible to deny the competence of the Community of Madrid to initiate and resolve its declaration as an Asset of Interest.” Cultural”.
And this is so, explains Linares, signatory of the writing, because “would not prevent the Autonomous Community of Madrid from exercising the powers granted by articles 148.1.16 of the Constitution, 26.1.19 of its Statute of Autonomy, and Regional Law 3/2013, of June 18.
The head of the ADVC points out that “this is how the Supreme Court has interpreted it” in four rulings from 2007, 2008 and 2011. In the last resolution, “referring to an order from the General Council of Aragon” by which the declaration of Asset of Cultural Interest of the Citadel of Jaca“monument owned by the Ministry of Defense and assigned to the Public Service of National Defense, the High Court, recalling the doctrine” of the previous rulings, stated “that the autonomous community delimits the surroundings of the Citadel of Jaca with the consequences that From that decision they derive, in no way affects the jurisdiction of the State that is claimed in the appealbecause it corresponds to the community that has the exclusive competence for it, and neither does this declaration in any way hinder the function that the property in question fulfills, in terms of its involvement in the service of national defense, which is not committed to that statement.”
It also recalls that “after ruling 17/1991, of January 31, of the Constitutional Court, the jurisdiction for the declaration of assets of cultural interest corresponds to the autonomous communities as they are also the Administration responsible for its protection.(…) as occurs in this case with the order that completed the delimitation of the Citadel of Jaca and its surroundings.
For all this, the Association for the Defense of the Valley of the Fallen assures once again that “the Autonomous Community of Madrid has jurisdiction to declare the Valley of the Fallen as an Asset of Cultural Interest. by virtue of the powers conferred on it for this purpose by articles 148.1.16 of the Constitution, 26.1.19 of its Statute of Autonomy, and Regional Law 3/2013, of June 18″. And, consequently, it requests that “the appealed resolution must be revoked, dictating another in its place by which it is agreed to initiate a procedure for the declaration of Asset of Cultural Interest of the Monumental Complex of the Valley of the Fallen, in accordance with the request made in his day.”