Justice. Seven out of 10 legal proceedings do not take into account the defendant's disability
Society Barriers, expulsions and mockery: 2019 was not a good year for disability either
Stories: María José, the educator who grew up with seven people with intellectual disabilities
Vicenç Flores
was riding his police motorcycle to help a woman who was being attacked by a man when a car hit her.
He was fired 16 meters and saved his life, but the impact and dragging left his foot battered forever.
It was May 20, 2009. He was 29 years old.
A few months later, while he was off work and had a coffee in a bar in Barcelona, he heard something on the street.
"Somebody yelled: 'To the thief, to the thief!' It was a guy who had stolen the bag
to a lady.
I left the bar, I saw him, I threw myself at his neck and in the struggle I smashed my foot again. "And then, in full loss, he was declared a" total permanent disability "and the Barcelona City Council expelled him from the Urban Guard and applied a forced retirement without giving him the option to assess whether he could work in a second activity within the Corps. It was on July 20, 2010. He was 30 years old. Today, 11 years after the accident and 10 after his dismissal, Vicenç Flores has achieved a historic sentence, because it condemns the city council of
Ada Colau
for "violation of the fundamental right to equality and non-discrimination" and for "violation of the right to effective judicial protection". Because it forces the Barcelona city council to submit Flores to an "alternative functional evaluation" and to compensate him for legal expenses. Because it cancels, as illegal, part of the
Internal regulations of the Barcelona Urban Guard
, which denies police officers with a supervening disability an evaluation to find out if they can work in another activity within the Corps.
United Nations
, according to which the Spanish State must "harmonize" the multitude of regional and local regulations, sometimes different even within the same city council, that make a police officer who acquires a disability may or may not remain a police officer depending on the region, the city, locality or the Corps in which he is. "What is it, I can't pick up the phone? Can't I do research work? Can't I be at a computer? I'm a professor of
Secondary education
I've been an administrative and risk prevention technician and now I work with excluded kids.
I tell you to the beast: if you are a moron you cannot be a firefighter or a policeman. "
"I remember myself crying"
His name is Vicenç Flores and he released his uniform in a Catalan town at the age of 21.
"Being a city guard is my vocation."
A few years later he opposed and won a place in the Barcelona Urban Guard.
"I was a patrol agent. I went with the motorcycle or with the police car doing pure and hard streets". Until that day of 2009 ... And that other of 2010. "They threw me out of the Corps by registered letter. I remember myself crying and calling on the phone, but no one answered. I still can't believe it; with a disability you can work, no one thinks that
Pablo Echenique
can't be in Congress.
I was not even given the option to demonstrate other capabilities within the
Police
"And there, in 2010, Flores inaugurated a judicial ordeal. In September 2010 he asked to move to a second activity, but the city council rejected it based on a regulation that says that" the decrease in capacity must not be of such intensity that make the policeman invalid. "In June 2012 the
Court number 13 of Barcelona
upheld an appeal by Flores against the city council.In July 2013 the
Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia
endorsed the city council's appeal and reversed the court's ruling, and between 2014 and 2018, neither the
constitutional Court
neither him
European Court of Human Rights
Flores's resources were admitted for processing, but the former policeman did not tire, he contacted the
Spanish Committee of Representatives of People with Disabilities
(
Cermi
) and reached the UN.
And on April 2, 2019, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities issued a revealing Opinion. "The ability of the plaintiff [Vicenç Flores] to work in a second activity was not examined when General Law 16/1991 orders a special medical evaluation to see the alternative capacities (...) The Regulation of the Urban Guard prevents any alternative functional evaluation of those who have a total permanent disability, which affects their right to work (...) Spain ratified the Convention of Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2008 and the regulations are from 2002 (...) There is a great diversity of regulations in autonomous communities and even within the same municipality (...) The State must harmonize local and regional regulations ". The city council did not take for granted: administrative silence. So, in March 2020, Flores appealed for violation of fundamental rights and the Prosecutor's Office joined that argument.
And the city council responded.
"The right to equality is not violated because the plaintiff has the means to obtain an alternative functional assessment in the
National Institute of Social Security
"The months and the pandemic of
coronavirus
they passed, but, at least in this case, justice did not.
The sentence: "the UN ruling is resounding"
And so, on November 16, the
Examining Court number 4 of Barcelona
has passed a sentence that starts with a not mysterious clue: "The UN ruling is clear, resounding and forceful." The Spanish court's ruling maintains that the Barcelona City Council refused to evaluate Flores and that he violated his fundamental rights.
And that in front of the municipal thesis that the recommendations of the UN Committee "are neither obligatory nor effective within Spain", the International Treaty "is part of our Legal System since Spain ratified it and was published in the BOE" The ruling says that the law allows local police in
Catalonia
with total permanent disability they can perform second activity jobs and that article 7 of the Urban Guard Regulations is illegal and "limits a subjective right recognized by law."
And that is why he ends it: "We declare that article of the Regulation void."
Jesus Martin
, Cermi delegate for Human Rights and the UN Disability Convention, lives this sentence like a stride. "It is an anomaly the null reception received by the opinions of the UN, which must be treated as judgments of a court and they are aimed at repairing violated rights. It is nonsense for the Barcelona City Council to make the flag of Human Rights and at the same time not abide by the decisions of the United Nations to make them effective. "
"Nobody did anything"
- Vicenç, what does this sentence mean? - It is a moral and judicial recognition.
But the city council can appeal.
What else do I have to do if even the UN says so?
We have five cases of the Catalan Administration in the United Nations: a local policeman from
Figueres
, a local police officer from
Hospitalet
, two
mossos
and me.
And cases of policemen in
Madrid
,
Andalusia
,
Murcia
,
Cantabria
,
Galicia
,
Navarre
Y
Aragon
.- In 10 years of litigation, you have come across mayors of Barcelona from different parties.
What happens to politics with disabilities? - No one did anything to correct a violation of rights that follows in the regulation.
Neither him
PSC
, with
Jordi Hereu
, neither
CiU
, with
Xavier Trias
They changed nothing, but at least they welcomed us.
Ada Colau's is the only municipal government that has not even served us.
It is a hypocritical government, because it always says that it defends human rights and then violates them.
If the Colau city council had been smart, it would have used this case proactively: okay, this case did not happen with me, but I am going to fix it.- How would you summarize your misadventure? - They have trampled me and the disability community .
They play a daily emotional drain.
You start with a physical disability and end with a psychological one.
Sometimes my glass has overflowed, but my engine has been helping colleagues who are in the same way.
And in that fight we will continue.
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