12 years after the accident and his

forced retirement

, there is a secondary school teacher who could go back to being a

policeman

.

Vicenç has managed to get the Justice to review itself and the

Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia

(TSJC) forces the

Barcelona City Council

to evaluate him to find out if, with a bad foot, he can be

a

second activity

urban guard

.

"I have been asking myself for 12 years why I cannot be a police officer in front of a computer, organizing a file, doing research, working in the Scientific or attending to complaints".

-What will happen now?

-That, although he will appeal again, the City Council will have to evaluate me to see if I am capable or not.

Finally!

His name is

Vicenç Flores

and he is the embodiment of institutional abuse, the metaphor of a human being crushed by the Administration.

On May 20, 2009,

when he was going to help a woman who was being attacked by a man

, a car hit Vicenç's motorcycle, causing him to be thrown and

shattered his foot

.

Months later, while on leave, he saw a robbery, struggled with the thief and injured his foot again.

A medical court ruled him a

"total permanent disability"

, and on July 20, 2010 the City Council retired him (retroactively to 2009) without giving him the option of a second activity.

Flores began legal ordeal with refusals of Spanish and European courts, resources of municipal governments (that of the

PSC

of

Jordi Hereu

, that of

CiU

of

Xavier Trias

and in

Barcelona in Comú

of

Ada Colau

) and even, in 2013, a sentence dismissal of the TSJC.

The same one who now agrees with him.

"The turnaround started in 2019, when the

United Nations

ruled that I had been

discriminated against for disability

."

With that moral force, the former policeman returned to the national justice, helped by

Gentium's

lawyers

and in November 2020,

Court Number 4 of Barcelona

condemned the City Council for "violation of the fundamental right to equality and non-discrimination."

The Consistory appealed that ruling, but now the TSJC seals the case with a devastating sentence.

Because it supports the thesis of the court on

violation of fundamental rights

and the UN on

discrimination

.

Because it reminds the City Council that, although the opinions of the UN are not executive or binding, "they clearly have an interpretive value of the internal norms".

In other words, local or national laws must not contradict

international treaties

.

Because the

Law of Local Police of Catalonia

and the

Statute of Public Employees

allow a second activity with a permanent disability.

Because it affirms that Flores suffered "discrimination on the grounds of disability in the continuity in the public employment that he developed" and "has had to go through a

long journey of lawsuits and resources to obtain justice

."

And because all this has caused

"certain moral damages"

that imply 6,251 euros of compensation.

"When they fired me, the world came over me. I was a policeman by vocation, and at 29 I was retired."

-So what did you do?

-I found my life.

He was on crutches as a basketball monitor for a neighborhood team.

Then a sports center management company signed me up.

From there I jumped to train the lower categories of

Joventut de Badalona

.

I studied a

Degree in Prevention and Integral Safety

, a Master in Prevention of Occupational Risks and another in Teaching and I worked as a prevention technician.

I was also an

auditor

.

And now an

educator of young people in exclusion

and a

teacher

.

-And during all that time, did you fight in the courts?

-And outside of them.

We have created an associative network to

help police officers from all over Spain with a disability

.

We have served about 400. This is a collective struggle.

-And how can yours be summed up?

-Twelve years of my life as a police officer have been stolen from me.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Catalonia

  • Barcelona

  • Spain

  • Justice

  • Ada Colau

  • Disability

  • HBPR

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