Casa Cornide, a baroque palace from the 18th century in the old town of A Coruña, has been declared an asset of cultural interest (BIC) since April 2023, a classification that means for the owners, who are the descendants of the dictator Francisco Franco , the obligation to open it at least four days a month to the public. They have not complied with it and, more than a year later, the Xunta initiated a sanctioning procedure. For the moment, it has proposed a fine of 3,000 euros, which the Galician Government has not reported whether or not it is final. The open road does not guarantee an immediate effect on the accessibility of the property and the process could become entangled with allegations and appeals before Justice that would delay it for years.
Carlos Amoedo, professor of Administrative Law at the Universidade da Coruña (UDC), explains that the administrative route, which is the one that is open now, must first be exhausted. The Department of Culture, which is responsible for ensuring that the requirement to open the BICs to the public is met, has not answered the questions from this newspaper to find out the status of the sanctioning file nor has it clarified whether the owners have presented allegations. . When he reported, at the end of October, that he proposed fining the Francos 3,000 euros for their non-compliance, he limited himself to indicating that there was a period of 15 days for them to express their opposition, but he never reported when it would end or the result. . Consequently, it has not indicated whether the fine is final or whether the process continues administratively.
The expert, who is part of the heritage section of the Consello da Cultura Galega, indicates that the process could continue to lengthen with an appeal for reconsideration against the final administrative decision and, later, there is the possibility of litigating in a contentious court. administrative. What is foreseeable, as seen in previous processes, such as that of the Pazo de Meirás, is that the Franco family alleges that there would be a violation of privacy, which is a fundamental right and that they are committed to litigating until the end. The right to respect for private and family life is included in European Convention on Human Rights, so “hypothetically, they can reach Strasbourg,” says Amoedo. In any case, a procedure in which the dictator’s descendants choose to appeal at each stage can last for years.
In the event that they decided to pay the fine, but still did not comply with the obligation to open the property at least four days a month for four hours, the Xunta would have the possibility of starting a new sanctioning file. There the recidivism could be assessed to increase the amount, although this recidivism only begins to count from the moment the first sanction is final. And, the hypothetical new fine could not exceed 6,000 euros. The reason is that the Read the Cultural Heritage of Galicia It includes non-compliance with the obligation to facilitate public visits as a minor infraction and the amounts are set between 300 and 6,000 euros. In the currently open process, the Xunta opted for the intermediate range. But, if the behavior is repeated, the rule indicates that it must be taken into account in the grading of the sanctions. That is, it is expected that a second fine for the same reason will be higher.
Amoedo interprets that what cannot be done, with this law in hand, is to consider this violation serious or very serious – in this case, the fines can reach one million euros – because this non-compliance is not included other than as mild. It is, however, one of the demands of Defensa do Común: that the Xunta considers that the sanction falls into the category of very serious ones and imposes the maximum amount. The president of this entity, memory activist Manuel Monge, believes that the Galician Government “is not acting responsibly” to force the opening of the property. He considers that the proposed fine is low, without the capacity to cause them to change their behavior, and foresees litigation similar to that of Meirás: “They are going to continue presenting allegations and appeals. But these people cannot be allowed to continue squatting.”
Monge says that this is an example that, 49 years after the death of the dictator, remnants of Franco’s rule remain. He considers Meirás and Cornide to be “two sides of the same plunder.” “The beneficiaries are the same and those behind it are the same,” he says, but, despite everything, he is confident that the A Coruña mansion will open. He asks that it be given social and cultural uses and even that it can be used as an “operations center” for the José Cornide Institute of Coruñeses Studies.
A replica of the obstruction applied in Meirás
The Franco family’s strategy with the Cornide House is replicating the one they applied in the Pazo de Meirás. The property, located in the municipality of Sada and gifted to the military coup leader after a “popular subscription” organized by the Pro Pazo Board – chaired by Pedro Barrié de la Maza, financier, businessman and Count of Fenosa who is also relevant to understanding the history how the Cornide House was added to the Franco family’s heritage – was declared BIC in 2008. The descendants of the dictator litigated against the obligation to open the building to the public and it was not until 2011 that it was They made the first visits. The Francisco Franco Foundation was in charge of organizing them, with the declared objective of praising Franco’s “greatness.” In the summers, when descendants went to the property, it was again closed to the public. The repeated complaints led in 2017 to a fine of 4,500 euros imposed by the Galician Government – which, on the other hand, paid for security at the pazo despite not having any legal obligation. No payment was made, according to the newspaper. The Countrybecause the owner of the property, in whose name the sanction was, was Carmen Franco Polo, who died before paying it.
With the process to declare the Pazo de Meirás BIC begun, the descendants of the dictator resorted to the argument that a private home was invaded to reject the technicians of the Xunta, then directed by the bipartite of PSdeG and BNG, from entering to inspect the state and assets contained in the property. The reasoning is the same at House Cornide.
The argument that the house is inhabited that the Xunta rejects
When the Xunta addressed the dictator’s heirs to remind them that they must open Cornide House to the public, the response was to maintain that the property is inhabited, even though it is public knowledge that no one lives there. The intention is to make use of one of the assumptions contained in the law to avoid the obligation to open a BIC to the public, which is that it constitutes a private address.
But the Xunta did not accept that argument. Technicians from the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage visited the mansion in March 2023 and confirmed that it is “practically empty of furniture, so it does not seem likely that it is the private home of its owners.” And this is what the regional administration conveyed to the Francos in a letter dated April 25 of this year, signed by the general director of Cultural Heritage, Carmen Martínez Insua.
The process to recover it as a public good
In the case of the Cornide House, another front is open other than ensuring that the public can visit it because it is an asset of cultural interest. It is to recover it into public hands. The process has been initiated by the A Coruña City Council, given that the mansion belonged to the municipal administration just before the operation that placed it in the hands of the Franco family. After receiving different uses, it was acquired at the end of the 40s of the last century by the General Directorate of Fine Arts, integrated into the Ministry of National Education of the dictatorship. In the following decade, Mayor Alfonso Molina – another member, like Barrié, of the Pro Pazo Board – began the process and negotiated an exchange: a piece of land in the San Roque de Fóra area in exchange for the Cornide House becoming an asset of the city council.
Molina died without completing the operation, but his successor as Mayor, Sergio Peñamaría de Llano, achieved the exchange in 1962. In August of that year, the local corporation approved the auction of the Cornide House and the buyer turned out to be Pedro Barrié de la Maza. He disbursed 305,000 pesetas and retained the property for just three days. Then he sold it to Carmen Polo, Franco’s wife, for the much lower figure of 25,000 pesetas. It is this decision to hold a public auction that the current local government of A Coruña, led by socialist Inés Rey, is reviewing ex officio to try to annul it. It was the suggestion made by a group of legal experts, including Carlos Amoedo, who see a fraud in the law both in the exchange – this review would correspond to the State – and in the auction. The process is currently underway. The City Council has not initiated the other recommendation of the experts, which is a civil action to annul the sale.
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