The Higher Prosecutor’s Office of the Canary Islands presented this morning before the High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands a contentious-administrative appeal against the Territorial Protocol for the reception of unaccompanied foreign migrant minors in the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands, published on September 12.
Under this protocol, binding on regional officials and NGOs working for the Regional Administration in immigration matters, the islands no longer assume guardianship of minor and unaccompanied immigrants if they are not handed over to them by state security forces. correctly identified and with a individualized missionwhich is the responsibility of the State according to the government of Fernando Clavijo.
The prosecutor’s office has already warned the regional government that the application of the protocol could give rise to criminal prosecution in the event of abandonment of minors.
He has now gone further and asked the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Canary Islands Court of Justice to declare the protocol null and void.
The Office of the Prosecutor considers that this provision violates the fundamental right to equality recognized in Article 14 of the Constitution and in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as the fundamental right to moral integrity recognized in Article 15 of the Constitution.
The Office of the Prosecutor has asked the Court extremely cautious measure the suspension of the protocol, considering that its application implies “the absence of immediate attention to situation of manifest helplessness of minors which arrive from the sea to the coasts of the autonomous community.”
The very precautionary measure is adopted, in accordance with the law, without hearing the parties – therefore, in this case, without listening to the criteria of the Canarian government. However, if the request of the prosecution is accepted, a process of allegations would then be opened and the court would have to lift or ratify the suspension of the protocol, as an ordinary precautionary measure.
If the request for a very conservative measure recommended by the prosecution were accepted, the protocol would be immediately paralyzed and could not be applied.
