Mayor Fabrega’s beach project  in legal quicksand

The pet beach recovery project of Panama  Mayor, José Luis Fábrega,  hit a legal block on Wednesday, September 2 and will remain suspended until the process of citizen participation, established by the Decentralization Law, is fulfilled.

The First Superior Court of the First Judicial District confirmed a  March ruling by the Fourth Civil Court of the First Judicial Circuit, which granted an Amparo of guarantees against the beach project.

In March, lawyers Ricardo Alberto Lombana González and Martita Cornejo Robles, as Panamanian

citizens and echoing multiple complaints from residents of the capital filed the Constitutional Rights Amparo Action against the Municipal Council of the District of Panama, which was accepted by the Court but the Municipal Council later presented an appeal to revoke the sentence, also requesting that the corresponding line of decentralization investments be maintained at the point of the recovery of beaches in the Bay of Panama, that is, the $30 million approved in 2019 to be used in 2020.

“The Panamanian justice heard the clamor of the people for a participatory government, which is already established in the Decentralization Law, but which the mayors and representatives of the townships ignore. A participatory government is one that takes into account the voice and vote of its citizens, this being the essence of the Decentralization Law, ” said lawyer Martita Cornejo after the Court’s decision.