The High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) has urgently suspended the protocol imposed by the regional government for the reception of unaccompanied minors. The Administrative Contentious Chamber has accepted the very conservative measures requested in an appeal by the High Prosecutor’s Office of the Canary Islands “due to the conjunction of circumstances of particular urgency”.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office appealed this Wednesday against the plan approved by the Canary Islands coalition government and the Popular Party for violating the fundamental rights of children who arrive in the Canary Islands in a situation of helplessness. The protocol requires minors to go through a multitude of police procedures before entering the foster care system, which could slow down their protection. The brief that prosecutor María Farnés presented before the Administrative Contentious Chamber of the TSJC states that the measure violates the fundamental right to the principle of equality and moral integrity included in articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution and in the Convention on Human Rights. the Child. “Its execution implies the absence of immediate attention to the situation of helplessness” in which minors arrive in the Archipelago, concludes the Prosecutor’s Office.
The protocol was published on 12 September in the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands, introducing new requirements for the reception of migrant minors, whose guardianship corresponds to the autonomous community. Upon arrival on the mainland, minors must be identified by the police and registered in the Registry of Unaccompanied Foreign Minors (RMENA). They must also obtain an administrative resolution of assignment or individualized placement from the State. When it has these three documents, the General Administration of the State must inform the Canarian Government of the presence of a migrant minor “in a position to be delivered”.
Once these procedures have been completed, the Regional Executive must “verify” that there are places available in its resource network. Then, the minors, instead of being transferred directly to the centres, will be handed over to the autonomous community by police officers in the Canary Islands police stations located in Gran Canaria and Tenerife or in authorised places in the rest of the islands in the presence of a regional police officer or an authorised public agent.
”There is no reason to subject a small child who arrives alone to a procedure that does not exist in the law and to delay his entry into an appropriate juvenile centre, where the law provides that he should be. Without a doubt, the application of this protocol allows the permanence of unsuspected minors in police centres”, concluded the Superior Prosecutor’s Office of the Canary Islands in a document. Despite the rejection of the Public Ministry, the Government of the Canary Islands has already given guidelines to the regional police to begin implementing the new protocol. In a document to which you have had access Canary Islands nowThe Security Department specifies to the autonomous body all the procedures that must be carried out before children enter the protection system.
(There will be an extension)
