The judicial battle over Sijena’s Romanesque paintings has surpassed a new screen this Tuesday in that long decade that it has accumulated in the courts. Five former Ministers of Culture of the Generalitat have decided to file a criminal complaint against the judge in charge of ordering the National Museum of Art of Catalonia (MNAC) to return the 12th century murals to the Sijena Monastery, enforcing a ruling from the Supreme Court last May. The lawsuit, which also falls on those in charge of requesting the execution of the ruling in the Government of Aragon and the Villanueva de Sijena City Council, seeks to “avoid the destruction of irreplaceable universal works”, which would mean violating article 321 of the Penal Code: the alteration or destruction of “buildings uniquely protected for their historical, artistic, cultural or monumental interest.” But the move, with a long shadow of Junts, is above all a measure of pressure with the big question of its journey in the Superior Court of Justice of Aragon.
The complaint means moving forward with the facts, since the paintings continue to be exhibited at the MNAC waiting for Rocío Pilar Vargas, head of the Investigative Court number 2 of Huesca, to decide what are the next steps to take after the Supreme Court’s ruling. For now, the judge advised the creation of a commission of experts to decide how the restitution of the 134 square meters of paintings, categorized as Assets of Cultural Interest (BIC), should be carried out. But those who sign the complaint, former councilors Lluís Puig (who was head of Culture in 2017), Joan Manuel Tresserras (2006-10), Ferran Mascarell (2010-16), Laura Borràs (2018-19) and Àngels Ponsa (2021-21), under the legal direction of Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas, highlight the existence of multiple studies by experts that warn that any manipulation will endanger the paintings. The MNAC, not involved in the complaint, has stated that it is not technically prepared to return the paintings without damaging them.
“The execution of this civil sentence cannot be carried out if such an act implies the consummation of a crime, as is the case in our case,” reads the complaint that must be resolved by the Superior Court of Justice of Aragon and which, according to Alonso-Cuevillas, seeks to activate preventive measures such as those that annulled the call for the 2017 independence referendum, article 13 of the Criminal Procedure Law. Among the crimes that appear in the complaint is that of prevarication (due to “manifest contempt for the certain and fatal result” of the restitution), which affects only the judge, and that of destruction of cultural heritage. The complaint defends that the right of property, which obliges the Monastery of Sijena to restitute, is below the general interest of protecting heritage.
Before the counselors After the complaint was presented in Barcelona, which had been in the making for weeks, the General Director of Culture of the Government of Aragon, Pedro Olloqui, has appeared before journalists in Zaragoza to denounce what he considers an “intimidating and unacceptable” movement that has been linked to the Catalan independence process. In fact, Olloqui has taken for granted a continuous line between the actions of the current Catalan Government, chaired by the socialist Salvador Illa, with that of the secessionist executives who preceded him. Thus, he pointed out that the current head of Culture, Sònia Hernàndez, was director of Cultural Heritage during the ERC Government: “there is continuity.” “The independence movement wants to grow at the expense of the rights of the Aragonese,” said Olloqui, who throughout Javier Azcón’s previous mandate was one of the most belligerent figures with the Generalitat in the Sijena dispute.
During the event, the speeches of the complainants have been especially political, admitting that the complaint is, possibly, the last option left to stop the execution of a sentence that Mascarell has said is intended to be “a humiliation”: “They have the conviction that Catalanness must be liquidated.” Tresserras, with a similar speech, has defended the protection of MNAC technicians against possible complaints.
“We cannot resign ourselves,” Borràs pointed out when she spoke, sure of having “the force of reason.” In his opinion, there are three axes that guide the complaint: the preservation of an “extremely valuable and fragile” asset, appealing to shared responsibility to find alternatives and preserving the right to culture, in reference to making it available to the greatest number of people.
With hardly any progress
Since the Supreme Court ruling, little progress has been made in the transfer of the Sijena murals. Doubts continue about how the return of the paintings from the chapter house will end, a jewel of Romanesque art, although badly damaged by the fire that devastated the monastery in Huesca. That work, started in 1936 and moved to Barcelona, is the one with the worst scenario in case it has to be moved. Another thing are the so-called “profane paintings”, which were in other rooms of the Aragonese monastery until they were also torn down in the 1960s. In a better state of conservation having escaped the flames of 1936, the MNAC has indicated that it is in a position to restore them and, in fact, has already put out to tender for a company to take charge of their removal before the end of this year. SIT, Projects, Design and Conservation is the only company that has presented itself, although the MNAC has asked it to accredit the Single European Procurement Document, a declaration on the financial situation, capabilities and suitability for a public procurement procedure.