The MNAC will have to return the murals to Sixena before May 2027

BarcelonaThe judge in Huesca has set a deadline of 56 weeks, just over a year, for the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC) to return the murals from the chapter house of the Sijena monastery. The ruling, dated last Friday, has already been notified to the Aragonese and Catalan institutions, and was made public this Monday. The deadline expires in May 2027. MNAC sources indicate that the museum will not make any statements about this ruling and that their lawyers will study it. The judge has set a deadline of five business days for them to file a motion for reconsideration.

Upon learning of the decision, the Director General of Culture of the Government of Aragon, Pedro Olloqui, celebrated the news and described it as "excellent" for the people of Aragon, as it definitively opens the door to the return of the paintings "irreversibly." Olloqui specified that the countdown begins this Monday, with the notification to the parties, and that the cost of transporting the works to the monastery will have to be borne by the MNAC.

In parallel, the lawsuit filed by former Culture councilors Lluís Puig, Laura Borràs, Ferran Mascarell, Joan Manuel Tresserras, and Àngels Ponsa on March 24th against the judge in Huesca before the Superior Court of Justice of Aragon (TSJA) continues its course. They are seeking to have her halt any action derived from the execution of the transfer of the works to avoid putting the legal value to be protected, i.e., the murals, in "danger." The lawsuit requests several precautionary measures, such as asking the judge in Huesca to halt any action derived from the execution of the transfer of the works.

A three-phase procedure

According to the resolution obtained by ARA, the judge does not oppose the creation of the technical commission requested by the Vilanova de Sixena City Council and the museum, which has repeatedly stated its technical inability to carry out the transfer. The judge states that if the parties reach an agreement on the composition of the commission and on the object of the opinion, they will be able to present

The deadline made public this Monday derives from the MNAC's own forecast of 64 weeks, while the Aragonese party had presented one of 28 weeks. But the judge reduces the times for the first three phases, because she considers that the first one of previous studies is already done. Furthermore, she reduces the risk analysis phase to 4 weeks and the methodological phase to 3, during which the technical methods and procedures for the dismantling, transfer, and reassembly of the paintings are defined and specified, because she considers that a good part of this work was already done in the previous phase.