The Generalitat wants social services to stop evictions

Despite the coronavirus pandemic and the different moratoriums applied, Catalonia has continued to lead the number of evictions in Spain. A leadership that includes vulnerable families. Currently, justice does not automatically paralyze the launches in which tenants have been able to prove their poverty through certificates from social services. The decision to go ahead or not, and to leave said families on the street, each court takes it. This is something that the Generalitat has proposed to change to the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC), according to the written protocol to which EL PERIÓDICO has had access. The document states that the conclusions of the social services are binding to temporarily suspend evictions if they confirm that they are vulnerable households. The same text, which the courts may or may not sign in the coming weeks, also provides for the creation of the Special Intervention Unit of the Mossos d’Esquadra to manage the housing problem.

The signing of this new protocol is in the air. Last October, the TSJC argued that given the “current situation” of “detailed” “positive” regulation of the matter, “regulations in constant reform and evolution”, it is considered “prudent” not to advance in the drafting of a new protocol text and “abide” by current legislation, of “direct link” in the performance of judges. The letter specifies the will to “continue collaborating from the judicial bodies with the social services and other entities involved, in scrupulous application, not only of the legislation, but also of the protocols signed in the past.”

Therefore, the Catalan high court decided to maintain the regulations in force until now in the matter of evictions, “with strict observance” of the current regulations and “especially, of the social and economic measures” approved in the decrees for the protection of persons vulnerable to home loss. At this time, the decree that paralyzes evictions until February 28, 2022 due to the covid, is in force, although it is unknown if it will be extended longer in time. It all depends on the evolution of the pandemic. In any case, it will be the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) Y not the TSJC, who will have to sign the new protocol in the future, judicial sources stressed.

The ‘Minister’ of Justice Lourdes Ciuró and the TSJC president, Jesus Maria Barrientos, they met again on November 8. At that meeting, the highest representative of the Catalan high court reiterated that, in his opinion, with the current protocol and the moratorium on evictions, the situation was covered. However, the head of Justice reaffirmed the need to approve the new text in order, according to sources from this department, to be able to detect the vulnerability of the people affected by an eviction when the judicial process begins and not at the end, “giving them legal certainty.”

Unable to pay

Every day 21 Catalan families have to leave the place where they live because they cannot pay, according to the latest data from the CGPJ. In some cases, when there are activists who oppose compliance with a court order, they end up being expelled by the police force, as has happened this week in Barcelona. The proposal that the Generalitat to justice is produced after such extreme cases as that of the neighbor who took his own life when the entourage that came to leave him without a home rang the bell.

The draft that this newspaper has had access to raises several changes in relation to social services. The most relevant is that as soon as an eviction claim arrives, the judge who attends it You must assess whether it is a case of a vulnerable family, and wait for the resolution of the social services that qualifies it.. If so, before continuing with the procedure to expel them from home, two ways must be exhausted: one, the mediation with the owners to try a social rental or withdraw the claim, and also wait for the Generalitat or the relevant City Council admit them to the Emergency Board. That is, they have the recognized right to access a ceiling provided by the administration. Without these two avenues exhausted, the eviction must be suspended, proposes the Generalitat.

Relevant change

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This is a very relevant change. “Currently the vulnerability certificates are a wet paper for the judges”admits Carles alonso Public defender specialized in eviction claims. He explains that this change in the rule could benefit many families, but insists on the need to expand the social housing plan. “As much as they have the document that allows them to access the emergency table, right now there is so much waiting list that they have to wait three years to access the apartment, they are evicted and despite having the right to go to the streets anyway, “insists Alonso. If this new rule is applied, many professionals also raise the need to increase the workforce of social services, nowadays saturated, to be able to do this correctly. function.

If approved, the text asks the judges to take into account the right to privacy and shelter of vulnerable families, especially children, as established by the UN in the declaration of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. For its part, the Generalitat’s proposal to justice commits the Ministry of the Interior to create a new group in the Mossos d’Esquadra: the Special Intervention Unit, which should be responsible for dealing with conflicts related to evictions, an initiative aimed at reducing the occasions in which law enforcement officers must intervene. However, the proposal does not resolve what will happen when a court decides to demand the presence of riot police to ensure compliance with an eviction, which is exactly what is currently happening.