The Superior Court of Justice of Castilla-La Mancha dismissed the regional government’s appeal and confirmed the annulment of a 30,001 euro fine imposed on the woman responsible for a public establishment for allegedly allowing drug consumption on the premises.[1] The Albacete contentious-administrative court No. 1 had annulled the fine in a judgment dated 25 October 2022.[1] The Second Section of the Contentious-Administrative Chamber rejected the appeal filed by the Finance and Public Administrations Department against that annulment.[1]
Police officers had seized four cigarettes that they described in their reports as joints.[1] The regional administration imposed the 30,001 euro fine through a 16 July 2021 resolution of the General Secretariat of the Finance and Public Administrations Department.[1] The regional government treated the conduct as a very serious infringement under article 45.1 of Castilla-La Mancha Law 7/2011 on public shows and establishments.[1] That provision punishes permissiveness or tolerance of illegal activities involving drug consumption or trafficking.[1]
The courts found unexplained gaps and periods without control guarantees in the handling of the four cigarettes.[1] Those chain-of-custody irregularities meant the samples eventually analysed could not be shown to be the same ones officers had collected.[1] The judges held that the officers’ sensory assessment by appearance and smell could not replace chemical analysis when that essential test’s reliability was undermined by the custody defects.[1] The sanctioned person had also been prevented from obtaining a counter-analysis to challenge the chemical result.[1] The court rejected the claim that a different judge signing the first-instance judgment violated immediacy, noting the case used a mainly written ordinary procedure with personal evidence preserved on audiovisual recordings.[1]
