Outside the chessboard “there are no classes or apartheid”, said that song by Mecano called ‘El peón del rey de negras’. In real life, however, social classes exist and now Ana Torroja, the singer of that famous pop band, wants to assert her noble rights: she has applied to the Ministry of Justice for the Marquisate of Torroja, posthumously granted to her grandfather by the dictator Francisco Franco.
PSOE and Unidas Podemos propose to eliminate 33 titles of nobility granted during Franco’s regime
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Eduardo Torroja Miret was a famous civil engineer – nicknamed ‘the wizard of reinforced concrete’ – from whose head came the calculations to keep standing buildings as emblematic as the roof of the stands of the Zarzuela Racecourse and the disappeared Recoletos Fronton in Madrid; the González Byass wineries in Jerez, or the roof of the Mercado de Abastos in Algeciras, as well as bridges, churches, aqueducts and viaducts in several Spanish and Latin American cities.
Ana Torroja’s request, published in the BOE this Friday and advanced by journalist Eva Belmonte on Twitter, is addressed to the Ministry of Justice. The singer, who has eight siblings, asks to inherit the noble title that once passed from her grandfather to her father, the also reputed engineer José Antonio Torroja, who died on July 14 this year.
The noble successions are regulated by a decree of 1912, modified in 1988, in which whoever considers himself entitled to inherit the title has one year to apply for it. If the request is vacant, other deadlines are set in motion up to a total of five years, after which “grandees and titles” expire, but can be rehabilitated before 40 years.
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If no one disputes Ana Torroja’s application, a letter signed by the King will approve the succession and the singer will officially become Marquise
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In case other people dispute the title, it is up to the Courts to decide who gets the distinction. If, on the other hand, nobody opposes Ana Torroja’s request, a letter signed by the king will approve the succession and the singer will be officially Marquise of Torroja.
The one-time star of Mecano – one of the most influential bands in Spanish pop music, with a following in Latin America and several European countries – returned to the front pages in 2014 for reasons unrelated to her renowned musical career: she was accused of tax evasion and prosecuted in a Palma court. The singer then admitted three tax crimes, committed in 2003, 2006 and 2007, and agreed to pay 1.5 million euros to the Treasury.
The instigators of the coup
Last November, the groups that make up the coalition government proposed, through the reform of the Law of Memory, the direct suppression of 33 titles of nobility that were granted between 1948 and 1978. During Franco’s dictatorship, dozens of people who supported the regime were distinguished.
PSOE and Unidas Podemos registered an amendment in which they list the duchies, marquisates or counties that exalt the coup d’état, the dictatorship or its instigators or participants, among them the marquisate of Torroja does not appear, although it was granted by the dictator posthumously. That is to say, despite being an award granted by Franco, that distinction would not incur in “cause for suppression”, since it has not been proved that Eduardo Torroja exalted the coup d’état, the war or the dictatorship.
“With the research work already carried out, it is possible to determine at this moment the titles of nobility and greatness of Spain that incur in cause of suppression for exalting the coup d’état, the war and the dictatorship, and its instigators, leaders or participants of the repressive system or of the organizations that supported the dictatorial regime, This makes it possible to include an express reference to them in this article and to directly establish their suppression, thus being the legislator himself, the depositary of popular sovereignty, the one who expels from the set of noble titles existing today those whose basis is constituted by a series of behaviours that violate human dignity and other fundamental rights committed in pre-constitutional times”, express the groups.pos in the amendment to which elDiario.es had access.
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