The Higher Court of Justice of Andalusia extends sentence of the boycott against Israel

– The Higher Court of Justice of Andalusia accepts the appeal presented by ACOM and extends condemning elements against the sentence that previously annulled the agreement of boycott against Israel.

– The sentence of the Higher Court of Justice of Andalusia accepts the appeal presented by ACOM in which we requested the extension of the annulment of the discriminatory resolution adopted by the City Hall of Jimena de la Frontera.

– The sentence annuls additional sections of the mentioned boycott agreement, including the declaration of the municipality as ELAI space (“Space Free of Israeli Apartheid”), based, among others, on the recent historic sentence of the Supreme Court.

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On 16 March, 2017, the City Hall of Jimena de la Frontera (population 10,000, province of Cadiz) approved a regulation called “Support for the Palestinian People” that declared said municipality, governed by the communist party, “Space Free of Israeli Apartheid”.

ACOM presented a contentious administrative appeal against this measure, which involved the town and its population in a clear discriminatory practice by adhering to the BDS-ELAI space. Later, the Contentious Administrative Court No 2 of Algeciras, in sentence number 163/2020, partially annulled this measure.

The court accepted in part the contentious administrative appeal presented by ACOM, annulling the points in which the City Hall committed to including selection criteria in the conditions for its administrative contracts and in the bases and calls for grants. Such measure allowed the City Hall to discriminate against Israeli bidders and applicants and anyone linked to them. However, it did not annul in first instance the explicit adherence of the City Hall to the ELAI campaign (“Space Free of Israeli Apartheid”), nor its commitment to cooperate with the BDS and spread its campaign.

Given the number of adverse sentences against the BDS after the legal initiative of ACOM, all of them insisting on the illegality of these clauses, our association presented an appeal against said sentence. The response of the Higher Court of Justice of Andalusia, in sentence 1323/22 of 10 October 2022, again is devastating, declaring both clauses of support for BDS illegal.

The Higher Court of Justice of Andalusia expressly points out “that there is a violation of the right to equality and free competition” in said agreement of adherence to the BDS and that said regulation “involves discrimination of third parties, that is, the violation of fundamental rights, so it must also be annulled”. The sentence of the Higher Court of Justice of Andalusia also expressly mentions the historic and recent sentence of the Supreme Court.

Thanks to the legal initiative of ACOM, main denouncer of the discourse of hatred and/or discrimination for ethnic and national reasons promoted by this movement, 86 agreements have been annulled to date, 10 of them confirmed by Higher Courts of Justice in the whole country, and most important, by the Supreme Court. All the sentences have insisted on the unconstitutional nature and illegality of these excluding measures that violate the common framework of coexistence.