Stopping evictions in Spain: The Platform for those affected by Mortgage brings a resolution of the European Court of Human Rights to the Spanish courts

(APPLICATION NUMBER 62688/13)

Through the specific case of the eviction from the building Bloc Salt[1] the Spanish PAH (Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca), together with the DESC Observatory, elaborated on February 2014 a practical document based on a recent resolution of the European Tribunal of Human Rights (res. 856/2013) that protects citizens from future evictions.

In Spain, the economic crisis was and still is a housing crisis[2]. Property market policies have been abusive and uncontrolled, pricing homes above their value. Banks have granted loans to families who have lost their ability to bear the economic costs. In recent years hundreds of evictions were carried out in Spain leaving entire families on the street without resources.

Within this context, squatting (among other strategies) is practically and ideologically becoming normalized to people who have lost their homes. With the support of the PAH, people occupy disused buildings that are owned by those banks that ordered the evictions (specifically state-owned asset management companies or “bad banks”).

These initiatives create family housing, denounce publicly the injustice of evictions, and mitigate real estate speculation. The argument is following: Banks that have been saved with public money are public. Banks cannot continue making profits from evictions. Their real estate properties have to be used to host homeless families.  In most of the cases, banks refuse to use their properties to re-house homeless families.

Last year 1.500.000 signatures were collected to change Spanish legislation on evictions and mortgages. Even if the quantity signatures needed to accept a citizen proposition was highly surpassed, the Spanish Government refused to accept the entire proposition. The PAH decided to claim to the European Tribunal of Human Rights (ETHR) that, through the evictions, the Spanish Government is breaching human right provisions concerning civil rights

Until now, evictions have been stopped thorough civil disobedience or through pressing the banks to negotiation.  In October 2013 the PAH appealed to the ETHR to immediately stop the eviction of several families living in the building Bloc Salt (you can find the text sent by the PAH here). The Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca exposed that the eviction was violating human rights of the affected families.

The European Court of Human Rights responded, notifying the precautionary cancellation of the eviction. The Acting President of the section to which the case had been allocated decided, in the interests of the parties and the proper conduct of the proceedings before the Court, to indicate the Spanish Government, under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court, that the applicants should not be evicted until 29 October 2013.

The parties’ attention was drawn to the fact that failure of a Contracting State to complu with a measure indicated under Rule 39 may entail a breach of Article 34 of the Convention. In this connection, reference is made to paragraphs 128 and 129 of the Grand Chamber judgment of 4 February 2005 in the case of Momatkulov and Askarov v. Turkey (applications nos. 46827/99 and 46951/99) as well as point 5 of the operative part.  (http://afectadosporlahipoteca.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Diligencia-PAHpag6.pdf)

It gave the Spanish Government 20 days of time to explain the measures that the local authorities are going to carry out in order to not violate the Articles 3 (prohibits torture, and "inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment) and Article 8 (Right to respect for private and family life) of the European Convention of Human Rights, specially referring to children, housing and social aid.

“The Acting President also decided to request the Spanish Government, under Rule 54 § 2 (a) of the Rules of Court, to submit information on which are the measures that the domestic authorities intended to implement with regard to the applicants, particularly the children, in light of their vulnerability, in order to prevent the allegued violation of Article 3 and 8 of the Convention. In particular, it asked which were the arrangements regarding housing and social care envisaged by the domestic authorities.” (http://afectadosporlahipoteca.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Diligencia-PAHpag6.pdf)

The resolution of Strasbourg demonstrated the structural deficiency of Spanish public administrations: Its lack of will to give an answer to the human right violations that evictions pose.  For several years the PAH has been reporting that the Spanish Government and local administrations default on housing rights and on international engagements.

The document elaborated by the PAH can be used for any other eviction.  The PAH is not strong enough to intervene in all the evictions that are taking place in Spain. Therefore, with this document, the platform generates a legal tool that citizens and other organizations can use independely. The document might generate a massive paralisation of evictions. At the same time it constitutes a tool to generate jurisprudence. You can find the document here.

The aim of the document is to be used for other campaigns and cases.  In order to reach the document to lawyers who are working on eviction processes, the PAH asked for a meeting with the Spanish lawyers’ bar. The aim is to facilitate different collaboration ways in order to mitigate the passivity of public administrations.