Luis Pizarro – no, not the Incan conqueror, the Andalucian Minister of Justice- was in town recently for a ganders at the new county courts, a vast 30,000 m2 building that has been completed on the Ronda in Almería.
The Cuidad de Justicia, on which work has now been completed, still has no date for the opening, and Luis refused to be drawn on a date.
This follows on, and partly prompted, the whinging from Judges that caused me to write about the collapse of justice in the region. The new courts are designed to allievate stress on the current system, expand the number of courts available and the room to deal with the workload.
The rumour is that as the Junta is still wrangling over how many new Judges and respective Courts will be appointed in Almería – they don’t want any, the CPGJ wants quite a few- they can’t open the building.
Courts were supposed to have started transferring to the new Palacio de Justicia at the beginning of Sept, but the Junta says it is still awaiting final confirmation of the building works, as well as the licencia de primera ocupacion and has indicated that the new transfer date will be in January. If they do start moving the paperwork over on time, it will still take about three months before it gets going – call it March.
It cost 47 million euros to build.