SONIA'S FACE OR THE FACE OF INJUSTICE

A face can finally be singled out of the ever-increasing number of people already damaged by the new Court fee system implemented by the Spanish Government, a sad face to look at under the present circumstances: http://www.betera.com/2013/02/22/betera-se-vuelca-con-sonia/ (in Spanish).

Sonia is a 7 –year old girl who was born with several malformations. Her parents do believe that those are the result of medical malpractice, as Sonia’s problems were not duly detected by doctors during her mother’s pregnancy.

Some years ago her parents started a legal battle that has proved unsuccessful so far. Now, the only hope left for them is the Supreme Court, but the new legal scheme means that they are due to pay the amount of 7.000€ as Court fees to have the right of presenting their case before the Supreme Court. If the situation were the opposite,  namely, a powerful entity considering an appeal before the Supreme Court as their last alternative, who can doubt what their decision would be? But in the case of Sonia’s family things are not so simple, as they have been living with some relatives for more than one year now for want of money to pay their mortgage.

The reform of the Court fee system implemented by the Government last week hasn’t come to Sonia’s aid. The law amendment, hurriedly drafted and approved by the Government bypassing Parliament again, is probably their response to mounting pressures, especially those coming from all segments of the legal profession and even from the EU authorities; most notably, Spanish Judges, Court Secretaries and Public Prosecutors went on strike last week.

Unfortunately, the amendments made to the law only have a make-believe appearance. The Government has boasted an 80% reduction in the Court fees for natural persons as a result of the changes introduced, but the truth is that the said reduction does not apply to the fixed part of the fees, only to the variable one. In fact, the Government itself has disclosed their manoeuvre when declaring in the preamble to the Decree that amends the law that the new scheme will only entail a 5% decrease in the proceeds stemming from the Court fees.

For Sonia, the foregoing “fencing” exhibition simply means that, in the best possible scenario, the requested amount for her case to be able to access the Supreme Court would be about 3.200€, as far beyond her possibilities as it would be for so many Spanish people nowadays.

Not only the right to be heard in Court is recognized by the Spanish Constitution, but also by a huge pile of international treaties entered into by our country. Let’s face facts: Human Rights are being violated in Spain.

 

 

 

IT COULD BE A FAIRLY DECENT LIFE

Last weekend I decided to give “the new generations” a flavour of classic cinema through the staple Christmas film “It’s a Wonderful Life”. I had seen it countless times so, much to my own surprise, I was surprised to realize how topical the movie can prove nowadays, in spite of it being a respectable 60 – year – old.

I assume the film is well known enough that we needn’t go into details about its plot. Thus, to start with, let me simply point out that Potter’s striving to engulf Bedford Falls is likely to strike many a Spaniard’s chord, specially when he succeeds in  making it home to an impressive display of night clubs and gambling dens in the hypothetical world version visited by George Bailey and his Guardian angel. Why? Well, it’s not difficult to associate the sleazy scenario depicted in the later stage of the film with Eurovegas, magnate Adelson’s controversial project to set up a mega-casino on the southern outskirts of Madrid as a way, the obliging local authorities claim, of fostering employment and economic growth in that part of the region.

But I deem in the World’s current context the film is worth some reflections from a less limited perspective. There is no denial that mixed views on “It’s a Wonderful Life” have been expressed over time, harsh criticism on Capra’s work being mainly grounded on its utterly unrealistic concept of life, which is something nobody in their wits would argue about. However, as far as I’m concerned, that’s immaterial if we take the story as the symbol of a more general conflict.

Actually, after coming round from the TV screen magical effect, the second thing that came to my mind, the first thing being Adelson and his life-improving project for South – West Madrid, was a famous article Einstein wrote in 1949 - http://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism  –, where he presented socialism as the way forward to overcoming the so called “predatory phase” of human development, the expression of which he found in capitalism. In the famous physicist's view, that "predatory" drive had led the world to so much distress in his days, and no doubt so has in ours. However, Einstein’s article ended up on a restless note: “how is it possible, in view of the far – reaching centralization of political en economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all – powerful and overweening?” In this respect, the pitched battle Potter and Bailey fight throughout our movie may contain a fruitful suggestion: what’s the key element to the story happy ending? As iI see it, it is reciprocal empowerment. Indeed, Bailey devoted his professional life to providing affordable loans to the working-class people in his community, what perhaps would be called “microcredits” nowadays, so they could live in decent houses. In their turn, when things went awry for Bailey, not only those he had helped were grateful enough to rush in his help, but they were also in the position to do so, precisely because Bailey had saved them from being derelict first.

So today, after the experience accumulated over nearly 60 years from Einstein's article, maybe it is possible to hold that the dilemma is no longer socialism vs. capitalism, as Einstein put it. Perhaps now the most fruitful approach to leading a more satisfactory, balanced life would be "atomization" of power with co-operative relationships, i.e.: people's reciprocal empowerment, vs.  unlimited economic and political power concentrated in a few hands.

Moreover, I can’t help thinking that an ever – increasing concentration of economic power is bound to lead to the “entropic” death of the system in the course of time. Think of this: once the few powerful have gathered so much wealth from the community’s production that they have made most producers miserable, what can they expect to be able to sell to them?

At the end of his article, Einstein refers to the detached attitude of most of his contemporaries to the threats the world was facing as "the expression of a painful solitude and isolation from which so many people are suffering in these days", to add right thereafter: "What is the cause? Is there a way out?" Was it perhaps the intuition of that pervasive entropic decay of the system I have just mentioned which made Einstein entertain those grim reflections?

 

Picture: greatfun4kidsblog.com

Credits: http://iniciativadebate.org/2012/11/18/por-que-socialismo-un-articulo-de-albert-einstein/

SPAIN WATCH: More on a dwindling State of Law

By the looks of it, the newly implemented Court fees scheme (see http://escritodesdelastripas.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/message-in-a-bottle-spain-watch-more-on-a-dwindling-state-of-law/) is already doing serious harm in Spain.

According to the law, those who have been formally granted the right to legal aid “in forma pauperis” are exempt from paying the fee, but the problem is the administrative proceeding in view of such granting can take from some weeks up to one year sometimes. However, in some cases taking legal actions may be extremely urgent, which can turn the situation into a drama if the concerned person cannot afford the amount of the fees. To add an extra layer of complexity, the new system means that the fee has to be determined in accordance with a scale and paid in an official bank account before someone is allowed to file their claim with the relevant Court. But, mind you, the official forms can only be filled out online and the future suitor needs to be the holder of a valid ID card and state its reference number.

As a result of the foregoing, the new Court fees are heavily cracking down on immigrants, especially on those facing a deportation order. In this respect, the NGO “SOS RACISMO” – SOS RACISM –, through the January issue of their magazine “ALTER” http://www.sosracismomadrid.es/web/blog/2013/01/30/alter-numero-12-enero-de-2013/ has reported the case of an immigrant subject to a deportation order who requested the assistance of a public defender and applied for the right to legal aid. The lawyer was immediately appointed and she managed to get a stay from the immigration authorities on his client’s deportation order until the Court decided in interim measures. But, on filing the relevant claim with the Administrative Court, its Secretary said the proceedings wouldn’t be started until the fee – somewhere in the range of 400€ - was paid, as the immigrant’s right to legal aid hadn’t been granted yet. Needless to say, the latter had no money at all, not to mention an ID card nor can NGO’s front that kind of money for each one immigrant in distress who comes to them. Hence, the deportation order followed its course. So, provided it was finally granted, what use would the right to legal aid be if the immigrant was no longer in Spain?

From what is said it flows easily that the new Court fees system in place in Spain constitutes an extravagant hurdle to the right of access to the Courts of Justice, which clearly violates, at least articles 7, 8 and 10 0f the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/043/88/IMG/NR004388.pdf?OpenElement – and, as we have seen, in some situations can even take on the character of a humanitarian conflict. I insist that human rights organizations across the World should turn their eyes to Spain and get involved in the fight to have this hideous scheme abrogated. I wonder why they haven’t done so yet.

SPAIN WATCH (No photogrphs, please)

The protests and subsequent riots that took place in front of the Spanish Parliament on the 25^th of September are still echoing.

The “Occupy Congress” protest came as the annual State Budget for 2013 was being debated in Parliament. After some scuffles, the riot police scattered the protesters and chased some of them into the nearby Atocha railway station, where they recklessly hit both protesters and commuters waiting for their trains at platforms and even fired rubber bullets at them.

But the police action was not only controversial on the grounds of the indiscriminate violence they displayed in a railway station, according to witnesses. Right after the incidents in front of Parliament, the images taken by some journalists and amateur photographers raised suspicions that plain-clothes police officers might have staged attacks on the riot police to spark the scuffles that led the police forces to split up the crowd (see links below).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYGnbG9QcCY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2jlOQqaf6k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FLW4OjlcrU&playnext=1&list=PLSyUtxMNETSUE-JvtcMV2YgXFNIJHlgnb&feature=results_main

The authorities were quick to react to those suspicions, as the day after a Government official suggested that, for security reasons, taking photographs at demonstrations should be banned. However, the response from journalists associations, civil-rights activists and the legal professions was so hard – this is not the first hint from the Spanish Government that some rights in connection with public protests might be restricted – that the Government seem to have discarded that idea. At least officially so.

However, some amateur photographers and professional journalists have recently received summons indicating that administrative proceedings had started which could lead to 300€ fines being imposed on them. The charges are obstructing the police action and refusing to provide their ID documents at the request of the riot police, whose action they were recording at Atocha railway station during the incidents.

“If I failed to identify myself, how is it that I have received a summons?” claims the journalist Alejandro López de Miguel, commenting on one of the videos below:

http://www.revistapensamientocritico.es/search/label/Opini%C3%B3n
http://www.revistapensamientocritico.es/2012/11/lo-unico-que-yo-estaba-haciendo-alli.html

Actually, if you look at them you will hear the police officers’ voices insistently ordering the camera-holders to turn them off. As one of them politely asks a policeman to identify himself – “will you please give me your ID details?” - the officer threateningly retorts: “I’m going to give you something else…!” Notably, Spanish riot police don’t bear their ID plates in a visible place, as opposed to their colleagues in many other European countries.

On the other hand, trade union representatives have complained that the administrative-sanction proceedings initiated in connection with demonstrations over the last six months largely outnumber all those implemented since Franco’s death, back in 1975.

By the looks of it, the Spanish Government want to give foreign lenders and investors the message that our laws will give them a beneficial position (see http://escritodesdelastripas.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/message-in-a-bottle-spain-watch-more-on-a-dwindling-state-of-law/) and that their interests will be “fiercely” – a truer word was never said – protected.

Probably, international human rights organizations should consider closely monitoring further developments in Spain, before it is too late.