Eduardo Ranz has filed a complaint with the Ombudsman for non-compliance with nine exhumations in the Valley of the Fallen as a result of a sentence handed down by a Court of San Lorenzo de El Escorial in 2016.
The lawyer for a large group of victims of the Franco regime alleges that in an order issued in 2016 by the Court of First Instance number 2 of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, "the relatives" obtained recognition of their right to have the bodies of their relatives exhumed from the Valley of the Fallen and transferred where they decided.
Specifically, Ranz mentions the order that already recognized in 2016 this right to the relatives of Manuel and Antonio Ramiro Lapeña, shot in 1936 by the Francoists, buried in Calatayud (Zaragoza) and later reinterred without permission from the family in the Valley of the Fallen in 1959.
The complaint to the Ombudsman requests compliance with the resolution and that the families of the Lapeña brothers and seven other victims be regularly informed of the progress of the process to locate the remains and deliver them to their relatives.
Eduardo Ranz comments that "despite the fact that the court order is firm and that in 2018 there was a well-known change of government, it has not been complied with, violating the provisions of article 118 of the Constitution."
Remember that this precept establishes that "it is obligatory to comply with the judgments and other final resolutions of the judges and courts, as well as to provide the collaboration required by them in the course of the process and in the execution of the resolution".
Ranz says that to avoid new legal claims and in the event of not obtaining a satisfactory resolution, he will raise the claim before the European Parliament.
"It is a fierce pain and if the exhumation in the Valley was for the victims, it would have occurred years ago, but the fate of the victims is not in their hands, time is running out and it is something that only the Minister of the Presidency", concludes the lawyer.
