The Balearic Provincial Court has accepted appeals on behalf of six people from Palma town hall who were due to stand trial for an environmental crime - specifically the contamination of Palma Bay by regular spills of untreated waste water.
The six in question were all associated with the Emaya municipal services agency - four members of the agency's technical staff, a former manager of Emaya, Inmaculada Mayol, and a current councillor who was the president of Emaya - Neus Truyol.
The court is of the view that there was no abandonment of functions by Emaya. This is based on the fact that the "exclusive competence" when it came to improvement of the Palma water treatment plant was the state's. Therefore, Emaya was not the body which had the duty to prevent faecal discharges into the bay; there couldn't have been any dereliction of duty.
The case had been brought by the Prosecutor's Office. Truyol faced a possible sentence of four years, but the court's decision means that there will not now be a trial, which had been scheduled for June.
The Prosecutor's Office, which could appeal the high court's ruling to the Balearic High Court, was of the opinion that senior officials at Emaya were aware of the spills and delayed taking action. This therefore aggravated contamination.
Neus Truyol of Més was the president of Emaya from 2015 to 2019. Following the election in 2019, she became councillor for the model of the city and for housing. She is the Més candidate for mayor of Palma at the election on May 28.
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