Caldes de Montbui opens the can of worms regarding the plundering and claims 47,615 euros from the State

BarcelonaThe victims of the dictatorship have repeatedly, and unsuccessfully, sought justice in Spain. Sant Julià de Ramis attempted to address the issue of the plunder in 2019. The Gironès town council claimed 9,786 Republican pesetas from that era, equivalent to €136,123.26. After the Council of Ministers rejected the request, Sant Julià de Ramis filed an appeal with the Supreme Court, also unsuccessful. With the Democratic Memory Law, passed in 2022, the Caldes de Montbui Town Council hopes to succeed with a new claim. It will not be easy, because while the Spanish government committed to documenting the plunder, the legislation does not specify how the victims can be compensated.

The mayor of Caldes de Montbui, Isidre Pineda i Moncusí (ERC-AM), will travel to Madrid on Wednesday, December 10th, to file an administrative complaint with the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory. "With the new law, we have a glimmer of hope, and we want to seek justice out of respect for the victims of Francoism," Pineda stated. "We know how we will begin, but not how we will end," added the mayor, who does not rule out taking the matter to the National Court and the European courts if the ministry refuses to act.

The Vallès town council took a first step more than four years ago when it passed a motion to commission a study on the victims of the plundering, which was entrusted to historian Neus Morán. In March 2023, all the documentation and data were made public. who found Morán in institutions, entities, and businesses, and an office was opened to assist the victims at the Thermalia Museum in Caldes de Montbui.

More than 183 summary trials in a town of 4,000 inhabitants

The plundering was no small matter in Caldes de Montbui. In January 1939, when Franco's troops, including Italian and Moroccan soldiers, entered the town, it had just over 4,000 inhabitants. Because it was a small town, the repression was quite harsh: 183 summary trials were held, and 53 people were prosecuted for political reasons. Some lost everything, while others saw their wealth increase. Over time, the Francoist Minister of Finance centralized all the management of the confiscated assets, including the money of entities that were then municipal: the Agricultural Union and Rural Savings Bank, the Children's Soup Kitchen, the Caldes de Montbui Militia Committee, and the Town Council's Administrative Section. Morán has been able to document the balances of these four entities when they were seized by the Francoist state. The intention was to claim the balance of all these debts, but ultimately the current count of the Agricultural Union could not be included in the lawsuit because, already under democracy, in 1997, the City Council transferred the money to the Union at the Barcelona Agricultural Chamber. In total, 28,925.70 pesetas (the equivalent of 47,615 euros today) will be claimed, which the mayor intends to dedicate to historical memory policies.

Article 31 of the Historical Memory Law recognizes the right to compensation for victims whose property was confiscated or who were financially penalized for political, ideological, conscientious, or religious reasons during the Civil War, but it does not specify the form of compensation. “Even so, the moment the confiscations are declared null and void, the legal system itself establishes that the victim must be restored to their previous situation. Therefore, they have the right to compensation,” says Daniel Vallès, professor of public law and historical-legal sciences at the UAB, who drafted the lawsuit. Furthermore, Vallès points out that there is a precedent before the European Court of Human Rights that could be helpful in this case. In 2012, the family of Mariano Ruiz-Funes García, who was a minister and ambassador of the Second Republic, filed a lawsuit to recover all the assets that had been seized from him when Franco came to power. These assets included two houses in Murcia, a rural estate, various movable goods, and all the money the family had to pay as a fine for supporting the legitimate government of the Second Republic. The lawsuit was dismissed by both the Spanish and European courts, but the European Court of Human Rights ruling specifies that there could be a right to compensation in the event of a change in legislation. Specifically, the ruling argues that the 2007 Historical Memory Law does not annul the judicial decisions made during the Civil War and the dictatorship, but if there were a change in legislation and, therefore, a new right were created (as has happened with the new Democratic Memory Law of 2022), there would be new grounds for restitution.