Spain: The Supreme Court orders judges to protect children before authorizing an eviction
Judges must ensure the protection of children before authorizing an eviction from the home they live in. The Supreme Court has established a doctrine on the duty of judges before an eviction and has revoked a judgment of the Superior Court of Madrid that approved the eviction of a family with three children illegally occupying a public housing.
The Supreme Court has ordered the judge who authorized the forced eviction to issue a new decision which will take into account the vulnerability of children. The judgment on 23 November by the Third Section of the Division of Administrative Litigation of the Supreme Court establishes the doctrine for all cases in which the judge has to authorize the eviction of a household where children live. In the specific case analyzed by the high court, the family was illegally occupying a social flat owned by the Housing Institute of Madrid (IVIMA)
According to the judgment of the Supreme Court, the Community of Madrid initiated the procedures to evict the tenants and requested a court order to enter and force the family to leave the address. A judge authorized the operation in February 2016 and, after the appeal filed by the occupants of the house, the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid ratified the permission to evict the family in September of that year.
But the tenants took the case to the Supreme Court. The mother of the children explained that she, her partner and their three minor children lived in that house in a situation of "extreme vulnerability" due to their bad economic situation, and she asked the high court what she had already claimed in the two previous instances: that they override the authorization to evict them from the house or postpone the eviction until their economic situation improves or the school year ends.
Read more here (Spanish):
Full judgment of the court here.
