Casa Cornide, an 18th-century baroque palace located in the old town of A Coruña, has been declared an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC) since April 2023, a classification that means for its owners, who are descendants of the dictator Francisco Franco. , the obligation to open it to the public at least four days per month. They did not respect it and, more than a year later, the Xunta initiated sanction proceedings. For now, he has proposed a fine of 3,000 euros, of which the Galician government has not indicated whether it is final or not. The opening of the road does not guarantee an immediate effect on the accessibility of the property and the process could become entangled with allegations and court appeals that would delay it for years.
Carlos Amoedo, professor of administrative law at the University of A Coruña (UDC), explains that the administrative route, which is the one currently open, must first be exhausted. The Ministry of Culture, responsible for ensuring compliance with the obligation to open the BICs to the public, did not respond to questions from this newspaper to find out the status of the sanction file nor specify whether the owners have presented allegations. . When he announced, at the end of October, that he proposed imposing a fine of 3,000 euros on the Francos for their non-compliance, he limited himself to indicating that they had 15 days to express their opposition, but it never indicated when it would end or the outcome. Therefore, she did not indicate whether the fine was final or whether the procedure was continuing 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 pleading before a contentious court. administrative. What is predictable, as we have seen in previous trials, 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 she undertakes to plead until the end. The right to respect for private and family life is enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, so “hypothetically, they can reach Strasbourg,” Amoedo explains. Either way, a process in which the dictator’s descendants choose to appeal at every step can last for years.
In the event that they decide to pay the fine, but still do not respect the obligation to open the property at least four days a month for four hours, the Xunta would have the possibility of opening a new sanction file. There, recidivism could be assessed to increase the amount, even if 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 Galician Cultural Heritage Law considers non-compliance with the obligation to facilitate public visits as a minor offense and the amounts are set between 300 and 6,000 euros. In the currently open process, the Xunta has opted for the intermediate range. But, if the behavior is repeated, the rule indicates that it must be taken into account in the prioritization of sanctions. In other words, a second fine for the same reason is expected to be higher.
Amoedo interprets that what we cannot do, with this law in hand, is consider this violation serious or very serious – in this case, the fines can reach one million euros – because this non-compliance n ‘is included only as light. However, this is one of the requirements of the Defensa do Común: that the Xunta considers that the sanction falls into the category of very serious sanctions and imposes the maximum amount. The president of this entity, memory activist Manuel Monge, believes that the Galician government “is not acting responsibly” by forcing the opening of the property. He considers that the proposed fine is low, without being able to make them change their behavior, and foresees a trial similar to that of Meirás: “They will continue to present allegations and appeals. But these people cannot continue to squat.”
Monge says this is an example: 49 years after the dictator’s death, there are still vestiges of the Franco regime. He considers Meirás and Cornide as “two sides of the same pillage”. “The beneficiaries are the same and those behind it are the same,” he says, but he nevertheless remains confident in the opening of the La Coruña residence. He asks that it be equipped with social and cultural uses and even that it could be used as an “operations center” for the José Cornide Institute of Coruñese Studies.
A replica of the obstruction applied to Meirás
The strategy of the Franco family with Maison Cornide reproduces that which it applied to the Pazo de Meirás. The property, located in the municipality of Sada and offered to the military putschist after a “popular subscription” organized by the board of directors of Pro Pazo – chaired by Pedro Barrié de la Maza, financier, businessman and count of Fenosa, which is also relevant for understanding the history of the addition of Maison Cornide to the Franco family heritage – was declared BIC in 2008. The dictator’s descendants contested the obligation to open the building to the public and It was not until 2011 that he was They made the first visits. The Francisco Franco Foundation was responsible for organizing them, with the stated objective of extolling the “greatness” of Franco. In the summer, when the descendants visited the property, it was again closed to the public. 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 having no 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 start of the process of declaring the Pazo de Meirás BIC, the descendants of the dictator resorted to the argument of the invasion of a private home to deny the technicians the restitution of the assets contained in the property. The reasoning is the same at Maison 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 had to open Maison Cornide to the public, the response was to maintain that the property is inhabited, even though it is common knowledge that no one is there. reside. The intention is to use one of the assumptions contained in the law to avoid the obligation to open a BIC to the public, namely that it constitutes a private address.
But the Xunta did not accept this argument. Technicians from the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage visited the mansion in March 2023 and confirmed that it is “virtually 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 Maison Cornide, another facade is opened other than to guarantee that the public can visit it since it is an asset of cultural interest. It’s about getting it back into the hands of the public. The process was initiated by the A Coruña City Council, given that the house belonged to the municipal administration just before the operation that placed it in the hands of the Franco family. After having received 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. Over the next decade, Mayor Alfonso Molina – another member, like Barrié, of the Pro Pazo board – began the process and negotiated an exchange: land in the San Roque de Fóra area in exchange for Maison Cornide which would become an asset of the municipal council.
Molina died without completing the operation, but his successor as mayor, Sergio Peñamaría de Llano, obtained the exchange in 1962. In August of the same year, the local corporation approved the auction of the Cornide House and the buyer turned out to be Pedro Barrié de la Maza. He paid 305,000 pesetas and kept the property for only three days. He then sold it to Carmen Polo, Franco’s wife, for the much lower sum of 25,000 pesetas. It is this decision to organize a public auction that the current local government of La Coruña, led by the socialist Inés Rey, is automatically reviewing in an attempt to cancel it. This is the suggestion of a group of legal experts, including Carlos Amoedo, who see a fraud on the law both in the exchange – this revision would correspond to the State – and in the auction. The process is currently underway. The Town Hall did not initiate the experts’ other recommendation, which is a civil action to cancel the sale.
