The president of the High Court of Justice of the Basque Country (TSJPV), Iñaki Subijana, considers that the "most reasonable" thing would be to have rules with the rank of law that "dynamize" the "necessary public policies that guarantee the right to housing," since, in his opinion, a decree is "an exceptional instrument" designed to respond to "a context of urgency."
In an interview on Cadena Ser Euskadi, reported by Europa Press, Subijana admitted that the case of Maricarmen Abascal, the elderly woman evicted two weeks ago in Madrid and who passed away last Wednesday, "has portrayed us all" and it is "undeniable" that "it has generated a shock" in society as a whole.
He explained that justice "what it can do is interpret and apply the laws in terms of that maximum satisfaction of people's needs and there are possibilities or avenues of interpretation that can favor or not favor that type of dynamics," emphasizing that the scope of action of the courts is delimited by the existing legal framework.
In relation to the housing decree that will be approved in the Permanent Deputation and incorporates measures against evictions, the president of the TSJPV pointed out that "the issue of housing clearly requires public policies that make realizable and guarantee the right to a home that meets the vital needs of people." "From there, a decree law is an exceptional instrument, which is a response to a context of urgency," he emphasized.
In his opinion, the problem of access to housing in Spain "responds to more systemic, more stable reasons and, probably, the most reasonable from a legal point of view is to resort to laws that dynamize these public policies, without having to always resort to normative instruments that are only designed to respond to situations of maximum urgency and extreme need."
In this sense, he pointed out that, in terms of housing, "the elements do not respond so much to a current conjuncture that demands that immediate response, but rather to a structure that has remained stable in recent years," which is why he sees a stable legal framework as more appropriate than a succession of decrees.
ELECTORAL ADVANCE
Regarding the call for general elections on the upcoming November 29, Subijana has reminded that the electoral advance is "an exclusive competence of the president of the government and it is up to him to make the assessment he deems appropriate regarding the concurrent political circumstances." "I can only respect that decision without making any assessment regarding its justification or not," he indicated, avoiding commenting on the timeliness of the decision.
At the same time, he pointed out that the "indications" of how the campaign has started "seem to suggest" that it will be a tense contest, although he clarified that he does not know if those "indications will really consolidate or intensify" as the electoral period progresses.
In any case, he highlighted that "in our legal system there is a structure, an electoral administration, that has the necessary guarantee and counterbalance elements to ensure the transparency of the electoral process and that there are no elements that can disturb or degenerate or that can really question the integrity of the electoral process," trusting in the institutional control mechanisms.
Regarding the statements of the lehendakari, Imanol Pradales, at the opening of the judicial year, demanding more self-criticism from the courts in light of decisions that "are hard to understand" and generate "citizen disaffection," Subijana has deemed it essential to "differentiate between not understanding and not sharing" because they are "two distinct spaces" and has defended that "the sentences are generally understood and another very different issue is that they are not shared."
In this line, he has recalled that one of the projects of the institutional justice system in Euskadi "has to do with improving access to justice for people" and, in particular, with "the improvement of communicative and informative language precisely to allow these people to fully and equally exercise their rights."
Subijana has admitted that "everything can be improved," but has reiterated that, "from the point of view of the messages conveyed by the sentences, in general they are understood, perhaps what is not done is sharing," focusing on pedagogy and the clarity of legal language.
NEW JUDICIAL POSITIONS
In another order of things, the president of the TSJPV has valued the creation of 17 new judicial positions for Euskadi and has stated that they are not "sufficient," although he has acknowledged that they represent "a good step" in the right direction.
He has explained that he does not consider them sufficient because, according to his calculations, "the most pressing needs amounted to 31, which means there are 14 that are unfilled." At the same time, he has warned that the creation of bodies "must also be accompanied by the number of judges sufficient so that we can really guarantee an agile justice," insisting that the reinforcement of human resources is essential to reduce times and improve the service.