Martín (not his real name) works at the Legal Studies Center since 1985 and is a few months away from turning 73 springs. First as an interim and then as an orderly, he has spent more than 37 years touring this building through which hundreds of judges, prosecutors and state lawyers have passed. In his case, saying that he feels at home is something literal because, as elDiario.es has learned, he has been living in the basement of this building in the University City of Madrid for almost four decades without paying rent or expenses and now he is faces the possibility of being evicted: the Center itself, which in all these years allowed the situation and never said anything to the Ministry of Justice, has decided to use that space to set up more classrooms and offices. The courts, for now, have endorsed the eviction, although for the moment he continues to live in this state-owned building.
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Further
The Center for Legal Studies (CEJ) is attached to the Ministry of Justice – which for the moment has not answered questions from this newspaper – although it is considered an autonomous body. Among its functions is participate in training of prosecutors, court lawyers and State lawyers, among others. But it has been around since the end of the Civil War and throughout its recent existence some of the most prestigious jurists in the country have passed through its classrooms. Many of them have treated this orderly in the last four decades.
In 1985 he started working there and also began to live in one of the houses in the basement of the building, formerly reserved for concierges and where, for example, civil guards had also lived. Some relatively recent works turned the basement into a dwelling that is accessed by opening a heavy door, going down some stairs and greeting the people who work in the classrooms and offices set up in the rest of the old underground houses. The door of the house –which looks more like the entrance to a warehouse– gives way to a living room full of boxes, a room, an office, a couple of other rooms and a bathroom that together add up to 50 square meters. A basement that for more than 37 years has been the home of this orderly.
The documentation of the case reveals that there has never been any type of contract, any type of written authorization from the Center for Legal Studies, Justice or the State in general to regularize this situation, and that everything was a verbal “tolerance” on the part of the body without the Ministry knowing anything for nine complete legislatures. It is also known that this orderly has not paid any kind of rent in almost four decades. And that it was in March of last year when the CEJ decided to launch its administrative eviction to get him out of there, a few months after turning 73 and retiring. According to the Justice, in order to finish some works pending execution from 2017 that have turned the rest of the basement houses into classrooms and computer offices.
As this newspaper has learned exclusively, at the end of April the contentious-administrative chamber of the National Court confirmed the decision of one of its courts to endorse the eviction of this ordinance after spending half of his life living in the house the basement of the public body. The “tolerance” of the Center, explain the sentences in the case, ended in March 2022 and that allows its administrative eviction although the orderly can still take the case before the Supreme Court while, for now, he continues to live and work there. This newsroom has confirmed that he was still there over the weekend.
“It’s hard to believe”
“It’s hard to believe that you can occupy a house in an official body for 37 years without authorization.” The phrase is taken from one of the appeals that the orderly himself has filed, unsuccessfully for now, against his eviction. A judicial debate processed in the National Court that has revolved around a main aspect: if he lived for free in the basement for 37 years because the Center for Legal Studies tolerated it or if his work gave him some kind of right to reside in the basement of the building. Whether or not he was what is known as “in precarious.”
The difference, with the law in hand, is important. Acknowledging that it was in a precarious situation because the Center allowed it to do so implies forcing an administrative eviction to be processed for the recovery of a public building, as has been done. Acknowledging that it is some kind of labor law would have greatly hampered the agency’s ability to remove him from its facilities, as it has been trying to do for more than a year. That has also prevented the matter from being processed as an illegal occupation or usurpation and that 37 years of rent can be claimed.
In his appeals, the worker claimed that it was part of his labor rights, that he has more functions than the rest of the Center’s workforce and that, furthermore, it is something that is usually done: “It is tradition in many official organizations, it is not an isolated event or a strange situation, on the contrary it is quite common and general for the doorman to occupy a house in the building to attend to it during the night and on weekends ”, he explained in one of his resources.
The CEJ and the National Court have rejected that argument from the beginning, recognizing the first body that this man has lived there for free for 37 years because he allowed himself without any type of contract involved. “Although there is no official document that has authorized the appellant to occupy a part of the real estate, it is evident that there has been a “verbal” authorization, tolerance or consent by the body that has allowed or enabled the interested party to occupy said space. ”, the Center said in its allegations. No other employees are known to have lived in one of these basement dwellings.
The Center hid that he lived there
The contentious courtroom of the National Court adds a reproach to this argument: the Center for Legal Studies allowed this situation not only verbally but without notifying the Ministry. “It has not communicated the same to the Ministry of Justice or the General Directorate of Heritage and has not regulated the conditions of use of the home, nor the obligations and rights of the user and the Administration and the payment, where appropriate, of the housing maintenance expenses and that of the expenses measurable by an accountant ”, reproaches the sentence.
The first judicial resolution concluded that if he was able to live there without paying for half his life, it was due to “mere tolerance of those responsible for the Center” from 1985 to the present. A year and two months ago, the body led by Abigail Fernández decided that it was time to finish executing those works pending since 2017 and that they had been adapting so as not to affect Martín’s 50 square meters.
The director herself explained it throughout the judicial eviction process. The works to expand the classrooms and offices of the Center were conditioned on respecting the “right” of the orderly to live there, but at a given moment it was necessary “a comprehensive reform of the entire semi-basement floor, which is practically unused”, including the house of the worker, “to which there is no access and whose status is unknown”.
The latest sentence of the National Court, in the absence of a possible appeal before the Supreme Court, brings Martín’s eviction closer as the deadlines approach. He will turn 73 in the coming months and will retire in October, which would leave him without a home but with better economic conditions, according to his environment, to find an alternative. An appeal would take much longer to be resolved by the third chamber of the Supreme Court according to its usual rhythms.
At the moment, the ruling supports the administrative eviction launched by the CEJ. “No document”, establishes the ruling, allows us to conclude that this “free use and enjoyment” of the basement has been allowed by something other than the “mere possessive tolerance” of the Center for Legal Studies itself. “Based on the very important fact that such assignment of use does not appear in the employment contract,” says the Court, it rules out that it is a right associated with his job position.
While the case faces its final stretch after more than 37 years living for free next to his job, the orderly continues working and commenting on his story to whoever wants to listen. Everyone in that area of the Ciudad Universitaria knows who he is and he, after four decades in the temple of Spanish legal knowledge, knows who everyone is. Judges, prosecutors, judicial officials and State lawyers who for years have lived, without knowing it, with one of the most particular cases of eviction that have passed through the hands of Justice with the Center for Legal Studies as landlord and main protagonist.
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