The Supreme Court declares that, if a licence is granted subject to the issuance of a favourable technical report regarding the report on the reconsideration of the layout, it is not possible to consider that the period for the expiry of the licence has begun to run until the issuance and notification of the report.
The Supreme Court has ruled, in judgment 874/2021 of 17 June, on the impossibility of disclosing the expiry date of the licence in the event that the licence is conditional on the issuing of a municipal technical report in relation to the replanting procedure and the aforementioned report has been issued but not notified to the interested party.
In this particular case, both the Court of Justice who first met and later the TSJ of Galicia felt that the lack of notification of the favourable technical report did not prevent the calculation of the expiry time set by the licence for the start and the execution of works, because we are dealing with a positive silence assumption and, consequently, the stakeholders had to understand that the report was favourable and initiate the works, as well as because the interested parties had at their disposal the administrative dossier where they could consult the mentioned report.
Instead, the High Court reaches a completely different conclusion and, in application of the doctrine of administrative silence established in the case law of the Constitutional Court and of the Supreme Court itself, considers that the lack of notification of the draft report precluded the initiation of the calculation of the term of expiration of the licence, because failure to comply with the legal obligation to resolve the individual administration cannot benefit it or harm the person concerned. It also considers that an interpretation of the administrative silence that places the mismanagement in a more advantageous position than it would have if it had fulfilled its legal obligation to resolve and notify is unreasonable.
On the other hand, the Supreme Court also states that administrative silence must be understood as a guarantee for private individuals in their relations with public administrations and that an interpretation cannot be made that transforms into an obligation the right of citizens to be informed of the confusion of the procedures in which they are interested.
Thus, the Supreme Court estimates that in a case such as the one that has been substantiated, although it is possible to understand that the report is favourable by administrative silence, it is not possible to understand initiated the computation of the term of expiration of the licence until the time of the issuing and notification of the report, because a different interpretation would be contrary to the case law of the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court regarding administrative silence.