Ct is an important decision, on a legal but also philosophical level, that the Spanish Constitutional Court has just made by confirming, on November 20, the constitutionality of the law on the Mar Menor and thus establishing a new category of “legal person” on European soil.
The Mar Menor, located in the autonomous community of Murcia, Spain, is the largest saltwater lagoon in Europe. Once a treasure of biodiversity, it is now suffocated by the cumulative dysfunctions of tourism, agriculture and mining industries. After hundreds of asphyxiated fish corpses were found on its surface in 2019, Maria Teresa Vincente Giménez, professor of philosophy of law at the University of Murcia, launched a procedure unprecedented in Europe.
To better protect the lagoon, she managed to mobilize more than 600,000 signatures in favor of a popular legislative initiative demanding recognition of the legal personality of the Mar Menor and its basin. This procedure led Parliament to vote, on September 30, 2022, a law recognizing Mar Menor as a legal personality to defend its rights to exist and evolve according to a “ecological law” which allows it to maintain itself in the face of anthropogenic pressures.
The law thus provides for the creation of a “tutorship” composed of three bodies: a committee of representatives (public administrations and citizens of coastal municipalities); a monitoring committee provided by the guardians of the lagoon who have already defended the ecosystem; and a scientific committee. In addition, any natural or legal person may bring an action and speak on behalf of the lagoon to defend their rights before a competent court.
Wetland of international importance
But, as soon as it was passed, the law was referred to the Constitutional Court by 52 deputies from the far-right Vox party. They argued that by granting legal personality to a natural entity, the law had assimilated a lagoon to the human being, conferring on it a dignity that the Spanish Constitution, of anthropocentric inspiration, reserves for humans. Furthermore, they invoked the violation of the constitutional system of distribution of powers between the State and the autonomous communities, the law on the Mar Menor not being applicable to the entire national territory.
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Source: Lemonde