Every Thursday at noon, a group of eight men meet at the Apostles Gate of the grand cathedral of Valencia, an ancient coastal city in western Spain. Sitting in a circle, dressed head to toe in black, they resemble a court of judges – which they are. But their shirts are not togas – they are the traditional blouses worn by orchard farmers of the Huerta, the fertile plain surrounding the city.
They are the Tribunal de las Aguas de Valencia, or the Valencia Water Court, one of the oldest democratic institutions in the world. Their job is to ensure the fair and smooth working of the intricate network of canals that feed the plain with water from the river Turia.
Each canal has a community of water users made up of local farmers, and each community gets to elect a juror, called a syndic, to the court, whose weekly sessions are a public event that draws locals and tourists alike. The court hears any disputes that arose in the past week and delivers its verdicts on the spot, orally, mainly in the local language, Valencian.
If one farmer upstream takes more water than allotted to them or doesn’t perform their canal cleaning duties, for example, an affected farmer downstream can bring their claim to the court. The rules governing the canal system have been passed down over centuries and they’re applied with an eye to the future as much as the present.
"Since time immemorial, the irrigators of the Valencia Plain have efficiently managed water, which is the soul that generates food for the population,” says the court’s president, Francisco Almenar Cubells.
“The surplus water from upstream is used by the irrigators downstream, so that all the water is used."
It’s widely believed the court dates back to at least the 10th Century when most of Spain was under Muslim rule. James the Conqueror is said to have formalized it in the 13th Century, and since 1978 it’s an official part of the Spanish legal system.
"The Water Court of Valencia is a benchmark for collective management and governance of a resource as scarce as water. [It] provides users with a service of mediation in their conflicts and acts as a safeguard for the rights of each of the irrigators."
