The Ministry of Social Welfare, Equality, Youth, Childhood and Families of the Government of the Canary Islands has submitted this Monday to the Governing Council the report on the opportunity of the legislative initiative for the consideration of the draft Canary Law on Childhood and Adolescence, as well as the proposal to initiate the procedure for the preparation, processing and carrying out of a prior consultation to gather the opinion of citizens and the most representative organizations potentially affected by the legislative initiative.
The objective of the new regulations is to recognize minors as subjects of full rights and grant them an active status within the social fabric, which is essential to build fairer and more inclusive communities.
“With the promotion of this new regulation, the Ministry of Social Welfare fulfills the commitment to provide children and adolescents with an adequate legal framework for the exercise of their rights and the fulfillment of their obligations,” explained the Minister of Social Welfare, Candelaria Delgado, at the press conference after the Governing Council. “We want, of course, it to be a regulation widely agreed upon with political groups, entities and different administrations, who will have the opportunity to send their contributions throughout the participatory process,” she added.
Organic Law 8/2015, of July 22, amending the child and adolescent protection system, introduced legal-procedural and substantive changes that sought to improve protection instruments, in order to continue guaranteeing minors uniform protection throughout the State. In this way, the law provided a framework for the autonomous communities to develop their respective legislation on the protection of minors, regardless of their administrative situation, in the case of foreign minors. The organic law contemplates in its sixth final provision that the autonomous communities will adopt the necessary measures to make effective the provisions and orders of the norm.
Therefore, and in compliance with state legislation, it is necessary to approve a law by the Parliament of the Canary Islands in order to normatively adapt the autonomous norm to the current Organic Law on the Legal Protection of Minors.
In addition, the entry into force of Organic Law 8/2021, of June 4, on comprehensive protection of children and adolescents against violence (LOPIVI) also meant a change in the paradigm of the conception of childhood and adolescence as full subjects of law, addressing, among other aspects, violence directed at children and adolescents, the emergence of child protection due to migratory movements, the structural deficiencies of the protection system and its necessary reform, and the challenges of child participation.
Likewise, the LOPIVI introduced principles and guidelines that must be reflected in the autonomous regulations, so the new Canary law will ensure that the rights established at the state level are implemented and respected at the local level.
Rights of minors
The new autonomous norm will include, for the first time, a regulatory title of the rights of persons under age, in which, in some cases, some of the existing ones have been adapted. It also redefines as guiding principles of the administrative action of the competent institutions the protection of persons under age, through the promotion of the exercise of their rights, the prevention and detection of risk situations and, in cases of declaration of helplessness, the assumption of guardianship by mandate of law, since these principles are essential to guarantee a comprehensive and effective approach in the attention to childhood, covering from prevention to intervention in situations of helplessness.
As contemplated in the report presented to the Governing Council by Social Welfare, with the entry of the new regulations, the protection of the best interests of the person under age is guaranteed, which must be valued and considered paramount in all actions and decisions that concern them, both in the public and private spheres, as well as all necessary measures are adopted to facilitate persons under age the effective exercise of their rights, among which is the right to be heard and listened to and that their opinion is taken into account in all matters that affect them, as well as for the defense and guarantee of their rights.
The need for this law responds to the guiding principles of the action of the Canary public authorities contemplated in Organic Law 1/2018, of November 5, reforming the Statute of Autonomy of the Canary Islands, in its article 21, among which the legal, economic and social protection of the family and minors stands out, guaranteeing the necessary care for their well-being. Therefore, the elaboration of a Canary law on childhood and adolescence is an urgent need to readjust the autonomous legal system to the new solid and effective legal framework that guarantees the exercise of all rights that are proper to childhood and adolescence as part of the citizenship of the autonomous community.
