Malaga city council suspends Low Emission Zone fines following court ruling

This opens another significant legal can of worms for the city council and for the tax collection agency Gestrisam, as there are 46,000 infringement cases of unauthorised access to date. The status of each case will need to be analysed, but it is likely that collection of the fines will have to be suspended or deferred.

The fines for unauthorised entry into this restricted area, covering just over 400 hectares, were 200 euros, reduced to 100 euros for early payment.

The legal tangle started with a ruling a few months ago on an appeal lodged by the Vox municipal group. The ruling of the High Court of Justice of Andalucía (TSJA) did not address the substance of the ZBE, but rather held that fining only those cars and motorbikes that paid the IVTM outside Malaga city centre was discriminatory.

Despite the ruling, the city council submitted a request for clarification. It has now decided not to pursue further appeals and will not take the case to the Supreme Court.

From this point onwards, work will begin on drafting a new transport bylaw. This will take at least a year, bearing in mind that the council first plans to commission a consultancy to examine how other cities have implemented this highly controversial regulatory framework.

In stages

The ZBE had a grace period of one year, during which no penalties were imposed. From 30 November last year, the city council started issuing fines for vehicles from outside the city that did not have an environmental sticker.

Next month, the fines were due to extend to non-local cars with a B sticker. The regulations were designed to enable the people of Malaga to use their new vehicles for their full lifespan without having to replace them.

Hernández told SUR that now, following Vox's action, fines will have to be imposed on both those within the city and those from outside: in other words, the people of Malaga, who previously escaped fines, will now be unable to avoid them, although, admittedly, there is still a long way to go.

Once a new proposal for a penalty scheme has been drawn up, it will have to undergo the regulatory processes of consultation, public information, submissions, etc. "We are legally obliged to eliminate this injustice. The legal principle is that all cars and motorbikes pollute equally, regardless of whether they come from within the city or not," the councillor said.

Hernández has been highly critical of the Spanish government's legal obligation to introduce a Low Emission Zone and the legal uncertainty arising from the failure to provide guidelines so that cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants could apply the regulation in a uniform manner.

The TSJA ruling is based on the violation of the principle of economic freedom, market unity, the free movement of persons and goods and the principle of equality. It states that exempting a vehicle from a penalty or permitting its use solely on the basis of the vehicle being registered or based in Malaga city creates unjustified discrimination between the city's residents and businesses and those of other municipalities, pointing out that a vehicle's environmental impact is the same regardless of where the IVTM is paid.

Drawing on the case law of the Supreme Court from 2019, 2021 and 2023, the ruling holds that registration as a resident cannot be the sole criterion for granting traffic privileges if it lacks a proportionate, technically justified, environmentally imperative and non-discriminatory justification.

The court dismissed Vox's remaining arguments, among which were the absence of a regulatory analysis report (which is not required for local regulations), the absence of a report on the impact on households, the lack of a budgetary report (as a financial statement was already included) and the alleged encroachment on the powers of Puertos del Estado regarding Avenida Manuel Agustín Heredia.

Furthermore, the TSJA upheld the environmental suitability of the ZBE for improving air quality and mitigating climate change and validated the formal procedure, finding that the principles of good regulation, just transition and public information had been complied with.

Despite the legal setback, the council decided to continue imposing fines while awaiting the final ruling or outcome of the proceedings, which took place this Wednesday with the aforementioned withdrawal of the appeal.

The introduction of the Low Emissions Zone succeeded in reducing motorised traffic within Malaga's central perimeter by an average of 25,000 vehicles a day. Consequently, daily traffic on weekdays fell from the 200,000 recorded in 2023 to around 175,000 in the first quarter of 2026, while at weekends, traffic fell to around 125,000 journeys per day.

Its geographical boundaries run along the coastline via the Antonio Machado and Pablo Ruiz Picasso seafront promenades; in the western part of the city and the area around the railway station, it encompasses Avenida Ingeniero José María Garnica, Calle Explanada de la Estación and Plaza de la Solidaridad; and in the northern part and the rest of the perimeter, it is bounded by Avenida de las Américas, Calle Aurora, the Jardines de Picasso, Avenida de Andalucía, the Paseo de Martiricos, the Alameda de Capuchinos and Calle Olletas.

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