The Tribunal de les Aigües de València is a centenary or even millenary institution that has become the symbol of a popular, efficient and direct type of justice that has been conducted by Valencian irrigators in order to quickly determine a solution to water use disputes in their fields. In the last centuries, it has formally become a legal organism formed by one representative of each irrigation canal or hydraulic system of the Turia river in l’Horta, which is the area traditionally known as Vega de València. This representative was formerly given the name of sequier. Then, in the last centuries he was re-named as síndic. The so-called Tribunal de les Aigües was formed by all the síndics. The existence of this institution is widely documented since the Middle Ages. The representatives meet every working Thursday at 12 p.m. in the Gothic gate of the Cathedral of Valencia. The irrigators and guards of the irrigation canals must go to the tribunal in order to present or answer any possible denounces related to the distribution of irrigation water, the damages resulted from irrigation and the condition of the irrigation canals. The judicial event takes place orally on site for a few minutes. The sentence of the Tribunal cannot be appealed.
Another matter that should be considered is that the Tribunal de les Aigües is not a permanent institution: it only exists during the meeting on every Thursday. It works thanks to the social agreement between all the irrigator communities that form it. Therefore, no local or State authority intervene in the process. Because of these reason, it was declared in 2009 Intangible Cultural Heritage by the UNESCO.
Although it has existed for a long time, its origins are unknown. Nonetheless, reasonable studies date the institution back to the 10th or 11th centuries, or even earlier. In any case, its origin is linked to the building of the main irrigation canals: Rovella, Rascanya Favara, Mestalla, Mislata, Tormos and Quart-Benàger-Faitanar. We don’t know their detailed history through the centuries because the judiciary activity of the Tribunal was strictly oral, so no written documents have been preserved. This makes the study of its structure and operation through the centuries very difficult. Only since the first third of the 20th century, short minute books were written addressing particular information about the sentences.
Not all the irrigated plains of the l’Horta of Valencia are under the jurisdiction of the Tribunal de les Aigües. On the one hand, to the north of the Turia River, the Reial Séquia de Montcada encompasses the largest irrigation area of all the irrigation canals. Due to its institutional autonomy given by the king James I in the 13th century, it is not part of the Tribunal and has its own judiciary system. On the other hand, during many centuries the coastal band of l’Horta was neither under the jurisdiction of the Tribunal. It was actually under the administration of the “Francs i Marjals”, which is an organism of the local council of Valencia that still exists nowadays.
