Still going strong

THE Generalitat allocated €70,000 to Valencia City’s Tribunal de las Aguas (Water Court).
The court has been meeting each Thursday outside the cathedral’s Apostles’ Door for almost 1,000 years and deals with issues arising from the irrigation system in the agricultural areas that still surround the city.
The tribunal’s eight farmers and growers are democratically-elected every two years and the Water Court is renowned inside and outside Spain for its promptness in reaching decisions, which cannot be appealed.
The Court is also the one remaining piece of the legislative structure introduced by Jaime I who retook the city and the region from the Moors in 1238.
Rosa Perez Garijo, who heads the regional government’s Participation and Cooperation department, recently signed a collaboration agreement with the Water Court’s president Onofre Cubells.
Perez Garijo also signed the Water Court’s Book of Honour, declaring that she felt honoured, as the court was a symbol of the region and demonstrated “the value of the Valencian word when given” as well as the importance of its institutions.