Cyrus Dugger

France Recognizes Legal Right to Housing

[JURIST] The government of France [JURIST news archive] has said that it will recognize a citizen’s legal right to housing [press release, in French]. In a statement Wednesday, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin [official website, in French; JURIST news archive] said a draft law would implement the right in two stages, for the most needy by the end of 2008 and for others with insufficient housing by 2012. Sources say the French Parliament may vote on a draft law as early as next month. An advocacy group known as Les Enfants de Don Quichotte (translated as “The Children of Don Quixote”) [advocacy website, in French] drew attention to the issue of homelessness in France as members began camping out in red tents in Paris last month. (link)

The right to housing may seem revolutionary to many in the United States, but it is a right enshrined in some fashion in at least twenty-five U.S. state constitutions. Moreover, it is a federal constitutional right in South Africa, and is also a right under international human rights law.

But how does this issue relate to the question of access to justice that this blog is concerned with?

As mentioned in the above post, the American Bar Association recently passed a resolution supporting the requirement of civil legal counsel in instances in cases where basic human needs, such as shelter, sustenance, safety, health, or child custody, are at stake.

While a right to housing doesn’t guarantee a right to legal counsel to adjudicate or defend this right, it reinforces and may be read with a right to the type of civil assistance contemplated by the American Bar Association. As many state constitutions also contain a right to access the courts, the creation of a federal right to housing, or more realistically, the amendment of more state constitutions to include this right (and the further strengthening of the right to housing in the state constitutions that already have them) can create a self-reinforcing and inter-dependent right to civil representation in housing cases where basic human needs are at stake. In affect, the whole substantive force of the two rights of access justice and housing working together in one state constitution may be bigger than the sum of its two individual parts.

The need to support people with legal assistance where basic human needs, such as shelter, sustenance, safety, health, or child custody, are at stake speaks to the importance of these concerns. If these concerns are important enough to require civil assistance at what point should they become actual rights?

The point is that those people who support the ABA resolution should also consider supporting the creation and maintenance of the state constitutional rights to the basic human needs such as shelter, sustenance, safety, health, or child custody the ABA resolution describes.

Posted at 11:03 AM, Jan 05, 2007 in Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)