On January 29, the Central Contentious-Administrative Court Number 11 of the National audience had already shelved the last appeal of this woman, represented by Christian Lawyers, against the work carried out in the Valley of the Fallen by National Heritage, after consulting this institution and verifying that they are being carried out in a different place than where the grandmother is buried of the appellant. It had been proven that, contrary to what was alleged by the latter, the exhumations were not also being carried out by “de facto means” and were supported by previous judicial and administrative actions.

This Friday, in the written response to the latest initiative of the appellant, who has attended in appeal against the judge’s latest decisionthe Prosecutor’s Office has requested the imposition on the appellant of a penalty of 1,000 euros “for absence of procedural good faith and abuse of rights, having hidden relevant information from the Court and insisting without any legal basis on the suspension of the investigation and exhumation actions” in the Valley.

Grandma’s “worthy grave”

The granddaughter of a woman buried in the Valley went to court after considering that the exhumations carried out by Patrimony violate her grandmother’s fundamental right to religious freedom and dignified burial. For the Prosecutor’s Office, however, her arguments lack any legal basis, given that the actions in the Cuelgamuros Valley are being carried out under the protection and in accordance with previous judicial and administrative actions.

In addition, the remains of this woman’s grandmother are deposited in a different chapel and crypts those that are being the subject of investigative work, without any provision for carrying out forensic operations on them.

The Prosecutor’s Office warns that the investigation and exhumation actions would generate an obvious “harm to the victims’ right to the truth” and specifically to fulfill the duty of the Public Administration to proceed with the location, exhumation and identification of missing persons to whom forces the Democratic Memory Law.

Last December, the National Court lifted the precautionary suspension of the exhumations carried out by the National Heritage in the Cuelgamuros Valley – which it had decreed a few days before – after the State Attorney’s Office presented allegations explaining that the grandmother of the person who requested to stop the work to protect the fundamental right to religious freedom was not buried in the chapel where the forensic experts are now operating.

In its allegations, the State Attorney’s Office specifically indicated that the remains of the woman buried in the mausoleum, and whose granddaughter initiated the appeal that managed to stop the work provisionally, They are not found in the Chapel of the Sepulcherwhich is where the exhumations are being carried out, but in the Pilar Chapel and, therefore, “cannot be affected.”

Lacks legitimation

It thus emphasized that the appellant lacked standing to appeal because “the interest invoked is merely hypothetical” and added that “the damages that the appellant invokes in an absolutely generic manner are non-existent since (…) the remains of the appellant’s grandmother are fully identified and located and are not the subject of the proceedings.”

Christian Lawyers, which represented the granddaughter’s legal representation, considered that the exhumation work authorized by the Ministry of the Presidency represented “a violation of the fundamental right to religious freedom,” reported Europa Press. He assured that “the mere necessity of having to carry out the DNA tests on corpses (which it involves some degree of desecration), there is a violation of the exercise of religious freedom.” He denounced that “to carry out these tests they have not requested consent from the family members.”