Spain: Judges void 2 municipal BDS motions, calling them racist

Via JTA:

Spanish judges scrapped motions favoring a boycott of Israel that were passed last year by two city councils. 

The rulings last week by separate tribunals in two of Spain’s autonomous regions bring to 20 the number of municipalities that over the past three years have either reversed their motions of support for an Israel boycott or had them nullified by the judiciary. 

In the northern region of Galicia, an administrative court in the capital of Santiago de Compostela reversed a motion passed March 31 by the city council of Teo, a town of 18,000, following a lawsuit filed by ACOM, the pro-Israel group said in a statement Tuesday. 

The administrative court in the eastern region of Valencia scrapped a motion passed in March 2016 by the local council of Catarroja, a suburb of the city of Valencia, which is Spain’s third-largest metropolis. 

As in previous rulings on petitions filed by ACOM or its affiliates — including rulings by two high courts — the administrative tribunals determined the motions in Teo and Catarroja were unconstitutional because they were discriminatory, and that they represented a breach of jurisdiction by municipalities unqualified to make foreign policy decisions. 

Last month, the Superior Tribunal of Justice of Madrid affirmed a lower court ruling from January against a 2016 resolution endorsing the boycott by the city council of the Rivas Vaciamadrid suburb. The High Court said the council’s adherence to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel was “discriminatory.”

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