For the Constitutional Chamber, by granting the ownership of the Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela’s properties, the people with lower income could cede to the appetite of the country’s real estate and financial markets.
By judgment 373, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) declared unconstitutional the Law on the Granting of Property Tittles to Beneficiaries of the Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela (GMVV) and other Public Sector Housing Programs sanctioned by the National Assembly on 13 April of the current year.
The ruling Justice, Lourdes Benicia Suárez Anderson pointed out that while property and economic freedom rights in Venezuela are guaranteed by the Constitution, «it is not the community that must sustain the economic growth of a few through the privatization of goods produced with public resources, but it is a duty of solidarity of all to contribute with the public burdens».
The Chamber also highlighted the lack of a «study of economic impact and public consultation» in which the National Assembly had to consult with the National Executive on the feasibility of the law, a requirement that was established by the Supreme Tribunal in the judgment No. 269 of 21 April 2016, that is to say, 8 days after the sanction to the Law of Granting of Titles, reason why that requirement should not be requested in the present case.
For the Justices, by granting free ownership of housing units awarded by the state to the beneficiaries of the GMVV, the purpose for which they were built would be distorted, «because property would be privatized (…) for the benefit of the real estate market and the financial sector that sustains it, because, due to the economic needs of the people with lower incomes, they could cede or mortgage the properties that are awarded to them without any limitation, thus increasing the appetite of the real estate market and the secondary market of debt.»
Extract of the Judgment
The President of the Republic requested this Chamber a ruling on the constitutionality of the Law on the Granting of Property Tittles to Beneficiaries of the Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela and other Public Sector Housing Programs, as preventive control, as provided in the article 214 of our Magna Carta and under the approaches detailed hereunder: (…) In a preliminary way, it is essential to point out that the regime of property ownership built on the occasion of the Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela does not deny the exercise of all its attributes by the beneficiaries. These beneficiaries constitute a collective, to a greater or lesser extent, from a family, through a community to a communal city. Among others, the regime of publicity of titles demonstrating that property (enrollment, registration and publicity) has always existed and the National Executive, through a resolution published in the Official Gazette of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, what has done is to speed up the process for those who have not yet been able to carry out the procedure”.