The High Court of Andalucía (TSJA) has thrown out the Junta's move to close down the town limits of Montefrío.

Reader’s will remember that Montefrío was the only municipality told to close its municipal borders; it had a contagion rate of 1,700 odd whereas Loja, which had one of around 1,200 was pardoned, for example.

The trouble is, now that the Estado de Alarma has disappeared a regional government or any other sort of administration, can order a town to close its borders, so what has been happening is that the Junta, for example, submits their intention to close the border of a municipality before the regional supreme court, which will decide if it is constitutionally permittable or not. In this case, the judges (it’s a tribunal) decided that it wasn’t.

The Junta is going to lodge an appeal but in the meantime the contagion figure for Montefrío has climbed to just under 2,127.

The tribunal made their decision based on the only existing law (1986) dealing with restrictions on mobility. However, the law does not allow an administration to apply it in blanket form; i.e., everybody in Montefrío, without taking into account each person individual state of health. About 10% of the population has already received the complete dose for anti-viral shots, therefore the decision to close the border would discriminate against them.

Since the Estado de Alarma has disappeared, regional governments have approached their regional supreme courts to impose restrictions but some have given permission, some have not, with each tribunal deciding using their own criteria. Until the highest court in the land with jurisdiction over the whole of Spain decides whether people can legally be locked into their municipalities, this ambiguity will persist.

(News: Montefrio, Poniente, Granada, Andalucia)