THE OMBUDSMAN DESTROYS SLOPPY CANARIAN TOURISM LEGISLATION

THE OMBUDSMAN DESTROYS SLOPPY CANARIAN TOURISM LEGISLATION

Neither unit of exploitation, nor obligation to comply with tourist use, nor obligation to renew, nor strategy against residents, nor limit on holiday rent. That’s so clear.

Myopia, comfort, closeness, prejudice and connivance with power have clouded the judgement of jurists who have had some participation in the elaboration and assessment of the different Canarian tourism laws. In addition, it turns out that this strategy of expulsion of small owners of apartments and bungalows and residents in the city with tourist potential was convenient to the exploiters. And the one who didn’t like it was because he has land and wants to build it. As an example, in the evaluation of the bill 2/2013 it was said that those affected were: tourism sector, operators, shops, restaurants, leisure, sports, car rental and the construction sector. Nothing about the owners and citizenship that also EXIST in this territory since the beginning of its creation and urbanization!

The “experts”, who do not stop praising its goodness, have dedicated themselves to blame the owners, of the resistance against this imposition. What they say is that the problem is in the atomisation of the property. It is not true, the problem is in the abuse and in the outrage.

All the Canarian legal filters have failed. None has contemplated the legal “sudoku” that would have appeared immediately to any expert in law (“The people are already in the territory, they have rights and they must be respected because the soil has already been transformed”). So much so that articles 23 and 24 of Law 2/2013 were voted without a single reference to the owners and the Advisory Council said nothing substantial about them. The State Advocate’s Office appealed the Law before the Constitutional Court, but only Article 4, the 5 or 4 star hotels.

Well, the Ombudsman, an institution full of jurists of recognized competence, finds the unconstitutionality and illegality of several precepts of Canarian tourism legislation. And for the same reasons that we exposed in the allegations to the General Plan of Supplementary Ordination (PGOs) of the municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana, in Gran Canaria.

And as it does not accept the principle of unity of exploitation, nor the strategy against “residentialisation”, nor the duty of renewal with consequences, nor the limitation of holiday rent, it urges the Government to change, once and for all, the legislation so that it respects the rights of citizens.

And, although the Ombudsman’s resolutions are recommendations, it suggests that he will activate the Constitutional Court if the modification of the Law insists on its maintenance.

Link to the Resolution issued by the Ombudsman (spanish).