The judicial decision declares the decree issued in 2020 by the Mayor's Office, which had modified the street's name, as “null and void.” According to the TSJC's resolution, absolute nullity implies that the annulled decree must be considered as if it had never existed, meaning the street should never have been named Arquitectos Saavedra y Díaz Llanos.
“"For all purposes, in this Very Loyal, Noble, Undefeated and Very Beneficent City, Port and Plaza of Santa Cruz de Santiago de Tenerife, a street called Arquitectos Saavedra y Díaz Llanos has never existed."
Although the ruling can be appealed before the Supreme Court, the TSJC has indicated that, once the sentence is final, the local corporation must carry out all necessary actions to erase any trace of the name change. The name Tolerancia Street had been established in 2008, in compliance with the Historical Memory Law, replacing the previous one dedicated to García Morato.
However, in 2020, the city's mayor chose to rename the street through an urgent decree, bypassing the mandatory municipal plenary agreement. Following an appeal filed by a lawyer, a court annulled the change in 2023. The City Council then appealed to the TSJC, attempting to summon the architects' relatives to defend the new nomenclature, but since none appeared, the dispute returned to the original court, which again ruled in favor of the lawyer. This led to a new municipal appeal before the TSJC, whose final ruling has now been released.
The TSJC has dismantled the City Council's arguments, which tried to justify the omission of the plenary session by citing the advanced age of the honorees to process the decree quickly. The magistrates recalled that the general rule in Spain is that streets are dedicated to deceased persons and that the professionals' merits did not arise suddenly, but their career was extensive, giving the City Council years to make the decision. The court reproaches the corporation for resorting to urgency when its own “passivity” contributed to creating the haste.
Furthermore, the TSJC points out that there is no technical or legal report supporting the exceptionality of the measure, concluding that the Mayor's Office's file lacks any procedure. The correct legal channel would have been to conduct a prior consultation with political groups or present a report demonstrating the urgent need for the change based on citizen demand, procedural tools that the City Council “never resorted to,” according to the ruling.
