The proposal from the Ombudsman: voting at 16 and compulsory secondary education until 18

BarcelonaLowering the voting age to 16 while extending compulsory schooling to 18, two years longer than currently, are two of the proposals put forward this Tuesday by the ombudsperson for grievances, Esther Giménez-Salinas. She is calling for a review of the age of majority to eliminate what she has termed "inconsistencies" in determining rights, responsibilities, and decision-making capacity. "Why can a teenager start working at 16 but needs parental consent to open a bank account? Why can they decide to discontinue medical treatment at 16 but cannot donate blood until 18?" the ombudsperson asked, asserting that many young people are already sufficiently democratic by the age of 16. She therefore recommends that, from this age, teenagers should be able to open a bank account independently, enroll in school without parental accompaniment, and vote.

Capacity and maturity

The ombudsperson emphasized that the 18-year age threshold is a convention, initially established under the assumption that it represents the age at which "capacity" exists, even though, like "maturity," it is an "indeterminate and difficult-to-quantify legal concept," according to Giménez-Salinas, because, like any age group, childhood is a distinct concept. "Should we prohibit voting after 80 because it's assumed that one is no longer capable? That would be ageism," she concluded. Following Portugal's successful model, the institution advocates extending compulsory education by two years to provide more opportunities for the future, provided there is significant investment in creating new places and an attractive range of educational programs. In fact, in the healthcare sector, the age of majority is already recognized at 16, when adolescents can choose to begin or discontinue treatment without parental consent or even freely choose to have an abortion. But even in this sector there is "a dance of ages"—in the words of the ombudsperson—because children cannot become blood donors until they are 18, and pediatric care ends at 15, when they should already be seeing their family doctor without needing to inform their parents. On this point, the ombudsperson's deputy for children's rights, Aida Rodríguez, has called for extending pediatric care until age 17 to cover, with family support, "years of great change" for young people.

The debate over ages is not new, and, for example, the Spanish government recently proposed lowering the driving age to 16, but Giménez-Salinas, a renowned criminal lawyer, proposes that the age of majority should vary depending on the context. Thus, she is a staunch supporter of maintaining the age of criminal responsibility at 18, considering it a good tool for protecting minors by holding them accountable for their offenses through educational measures, thereby preventing them from having to serve time in a regular prison. However, the ombudsperson has opened the door to reviewing the responsibility of minors when they commit administrative, rather than criminal, offenses. The institution receives complaints from parents about being fined by the public administration for their children's uncivil behavior, and in response, the ombudsperson proposes that city councils implement alternative measures for the benefit of the community for children who ride scooters or participate in public drinking parties, for example, so that they learn to take responsibility for their actions. The Ombudsman has presented the annual report on the situation of children, which, once again, denounces the lack of policies and economic investment by the public administration to address the problems and challenges of this group, which has a poverty rate 10 points higher than that of adults.