As is natural in a democratic society, modeled on the rule of law, in which each citizen must have their own opinion and respect the opinion of others, making decisions on public matters is, almost always, a complex task.
Increasing the supply of affordable housing is, clearly, an uncontroversial political, social and economic purpose. But how to do it?
Some will lean towards promoting the construction of properties by private individuals and placing them on the purchase or rental market. As? They will want to penalize owners who do not sell or rent them, expropriating the properties, imposing their lease with limited rental values, or increasing the tax burden on them. Those will defend tax incentives for sales and rentals or want to facilitate evictions.
For many others, the problem will only be resolved with the construction of public housing, by the State or local authorities.
Whatever the solution to the problem may be, it will involve three essential points.
Firstly, it will have to result from a combination of instruments, since none, considered individually, will be able to solve the problem. Limiting income, for example, alone will not be enough; but combined with rental incentives, it could work.
Secondly, these instruments must be harmonized, so as not to harm each other. Expropriating buildings will discourage real estate investment.
Finally, housing policy must meet the housing needs of citizens who lack it, at the cost of the least possible sacrifice from negatively affected citizens – private property owners who face reductions in the rent they receive, for example –, all within a framework of limited public resources. This is what jurists call proportionality, which I prefer to simply call material justice (although this is not limited to respect for proportionality).
Material justice, on a social level, takes shape in the arbitration of conflicting interests, public and private, pointing towards globally beneficial results, results that, although not the most desired and satisfactory for everyone, are acceptable to the majority.
In a democratic State governed by the rule of law, material justice must be a systematically pursued political objective, as it is indispensable to maintaining stable balances between antagonistic interests. Only in this way will it be possible to avoid ruptures in the social fabric, which, if they occur, will jeopardize the democratic rule of law, opening the way to authoritarian drifts.
Former president of the Constitutional Court
and subscriber to the 50+50 Manifesto for justice reform.