Friday, July 12, 2013

Andalusia: Spanish Constitutional Court uses the Constitution as toilet paper

Occupied homes in Andalusia
A year ago I commented with satisfaction that the Andalusian Parliament had approved a law that would allow expropriation of empty homes in order to guarantee the fundamental right to a dignified home, established in the Spanish Constitution. 

By this basic law of the Kingdom of Spain, the right to a home, as well as to a job, are fundamental rights, well above the accessory right to private property. Until now the main formal argument against tribunals upholding such fundamental rights was that they were not regulated by the state and therefore there was a legal vacuum. 

So what happens when the Andalusian institutions in full use of their legislating capabilities do regulate these rights as clearly intended by the letter and spirit of the Spanish Constitution of 1978? That the ultra-conservative Constitutional Court declares that hyper-constitutional law "possibly unconstitutional". 

It is not yet a firm sentence but just a procedural suspension for five months but the fact that the high court even dares to consider debatable the Madrid and Brussels claim of the right to property being above the right to a home, in clear contradiction with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, is a clear signal that, exactly as it has been for the last many decades, the Spanish Constitution is only worth as toilet paper. 

The Constitutional Court is clearly underlining this well known fact: there's no constitution, just banks.

Source: Diagonal[es].

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