The harsh rebuke that the Consell de Garanties Estatutaries has given to the Catalan law proposal against speculative housing purchases should shame its legal drafters and political promoters, namely PSC, ERC, and Comuns. But before anyone is tempted to label the nine members of this Consell as a bunch of reactionaries working at the behest of obscure interests, we should know that five of them hold doctorates in Law, the rest have degrees in this field, and all have extensive legal experience and ideological diversity. Let us also remember that six of the nine members were elected by a qualified majority of 97 of the 135 deputies of the Parliament and the Government appointed the remaining three.
These experts state that the mentioned law violates five articles of the Constitution, two of the Statute of Autonomy, and two of the Parliament’s regulations. These illegalities affect basic rights such as property, inheritance, freedom of enterprise, and legal certainty. Furthermore, it disregards the Town Halls that should enforce the law and those who were not consulted as required to avoid uncomfortable objections during the institutional participation process.
In short, the legal text is a big mess that should never have been approved, but it received political approval to facilitate the support of the Comuns for the Generalitat’s budget. The PSC was aware of the enormous legal holes in the law and suspected that what has happened might happen, but did not prevent its processing to avoid upsetting its partners. So now they can tell them that the halt to the law is not their fault but that of some nitpicking jurists.
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The bad news is that no one will take responsibility for this legal nonsense that arises from the erroneous approach of legislating against a part of society and to cover up political inaction on housing for fifteen years. The way to resolve the housing crisis is a great country pact without prejudiced exclusions and, therefore, where owners and those who know how to build apartments are also included. The good news is that there is time to amend the absurdity.
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