The legal saga concerning a decision by Santa Cruz de Tenerife’s mayor to change the name of a street in the city rumbles on.
What used to be Calle García Morato was changed under new legislation enacted in 2008 that obliged local government to remove names associated with Spain’s Franco dictatorship.
For decades, the street had been named after Joaquín García Morato, a pilot credited with the highest number of victories in the skies during the Spanish Civil War that saw Franco come to power and rule the country for nearly forty years.
Originally changed to Calle Tolerancia, Santa Cruz then decided to change it again in 2021 using a fast-track procedure. It renamed Calle Arquitectos Saavedra y Díaz Llanos, in honour of two local architects who had made a significant contribution to the city.
However, the decision by mayor José Manuel Bermúdez was challenged by a local resident but was defended by the council on the grounds that, as one of the two architects had died and the other was very elderly, an urgent procedure was needed to make the switch so he and his family could be present at the renaming ceremony.
The matter did not end there and headed to court where, several years later, the Canaries’ high court for administrative disputes has upheld previous rulings by a local judge and ordered Santa Cruz to reinstate the name Calle Tolerancia, given that the correct procedures had not been followed to make the change.
The court did not accept the council’s argument that executive decisions in such cases can be made by the mayor in exceptional circumstances and, here, time was of the essence due to the age of one of the two architects honoured.
In issuing the decision, the court said that approval by a full sitting of Santa Cruz council was required under the corporation’s own rules governing changes to street names, and this had not occurred.
