The judge of Huesca dismisses the appeal of the MNAC against the return deadline of the Sixena paintings

BarcelonaThe judge of the court of first instance and Instruction number 2 of Huesca has dismissed the appeal of the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) against the order of last April 10 in which it set 56 weeks for the return of the mural paintings from the monastery of Sixena.

In the interlocutory, against which there is no appeal, it is recalled that the MNAC based its arguments on the violation of the fundamental right to use the relevant evidence for its defense, and on the consideration that the Court of Huesca had not duly valued the expert reports provided by the museum that would justify the impossibility or technical incapacity to proceed with the dismantling, transfer, and subsequent reassembly of the mural paintings.

The museum also invoked the violation of article 19.1 of the civil procedure law, because the establishment of an expert commission had not been agreed upon by the court, even though all parties had expressed their agreement. It also requested to know the exact place where the paintings would be reassembled and alleged that the order had been issued without waiting for the proposed timeline from the Vilanova de Sixena City Council.

The judge rejects reopening debates already resolved

In the order, the judge recalls that the viability of dismantling, transferring, and subsequently reinstalling the mural paintings at the Monastery of Sixena was already examined and decided upon in the declarative phase of the proceedings, and this was expressly stated in the challenged provision. "It is therefore not admissible to attempt to reopen the debate inherent to the declarative process in the execution phase, nor to articulate, under the guise of an appeal against a resolution issued in execution, an indirect appeal against what has already been definitively settled in a final judgment, confirmed by the Supreme Court," warns the judge. Execution, she adds, is intended to ensure compliance with the return of the goods "without it becoming a new phase for discussing matters that have already been definitively judged."

For this reason, she states that no violation of the right to effective judicial protection or the right to use the relevant evidence for defense can be appreciated, given that the expert reports invoked by the MNAC "cannot operate as a channel to distort, revise, or nullify the content of a final resolution whose compliance must now be enforced."

Regarding the expert commission, she clarifies that the eventual agreement of the parties on the convenience of establishing it does not affect or condition the execution, nor does the lack of prior submission of a timeline by the Vilanova de Sixena City Council determine the nullity or inadmissibility of the provision challenged by the MNAC.

In the same vein, the judge points out that the development of calendar proposals or coordination mechanisms will be evaluated by the court, but "it cannot constitute an impediment to the continuation of the execution, nor displace the duty of the judicial body to enforce the judgment."