The Mataró Bar Association (ICAM) has reached an agreement with the nine judges of the judicial city to promote a new protocol that expedites the eviction of irregularly occupied homes, beyond the usual ordinary civil procedure. It is a matter of holding immediate trials for minor crimes – such as trespassing – so that the judges on duty can order precautionary measures such as immediate eviction and setting the trial for the eighth day.
Until this year, a guard court of the Mataró judicial district could hold more than 15 hearings for illegal occupations, basically large-tenant homes. The search of second residences and those of communities where an occupation generates conflict and insecurity were not treated in the same way.
Until now it was the deanery who distributed the cases of occupations among the five investigative courts, which meant a waiting time of about six months for the hearing to be held. The direct entrance to the duty court saves time for the owners of the occupied houses. The delay also allowed to perpetuate the squatters in the houses. The fact that it is the judge on duty who deals with the case means that in little more than a week the eviction of the house can be carried out.
Maria Pastor, dean of ICAM and one of the promoters of the anti-occupation laws in Spain, details that the pioneering measure has been agreed upon with the judges themselves, who in turn demand "a greater police effort in drafting the report." If the judges have as much information as possible about each case, the possibility of issuing rulings favorable to the victims of the occupation is more likely.
On the other hand, when the police go to the occupied house and make a report, the usurper is automatically summoned for a trial to which he must go with a lawyer and solicitor. "For this we have also had to modify the official shift" explains the dean, but this opens the possibility of holding immediate trials for minor crimes.
With this type of trial, the possible process of agreeing on a social rent is also expedited if the judge considers the vulnerability of the occupants of the dwelling. In this sense, the speed of the judicial process prevents the reaction of the social services when issuing reports of vulnerability, which made it difficult to carry out the eviction.
The proposal for immediate trials began to take shape in September 2020 with the request to promote precautionary measures. To do this, Maria Pastor went to the Spanish legal profession, which has supported the initiatives, and even to the European Parliament to request the promotion of laws against occupations. Unfortunately, faced with a management that required speed, in the European Union the response dragged on forever. "It took them two years to answer," reveals Pastor. Another stumbling block for immediate trials is the opposition of some prosecutors to applying precautionary measures.
In Mataró, sources from the judiciary consider that the municipal social services fairly easily issue vulnerability reports and even registration certificates in the occupied home itself, which they also understand as an obstacle to expediting evictions.
For its part, the Social Welfare service of the Mataró City Council assures that it has no record of having issued any vulnerability report regarding any case of occupation that is the subject of an immediate trial, since the speed with which they are held leaves little room for the squatters are cared for. They reach the social services after the eviction, referred by the local police, if they do not have resources or alternative housing
