Spanish court rules against holiday home naturists' insistence on nudity in communal areas

The Supreme Court of Spain ruled against the demand of a few naturist property owners at a holiday home development who insisted that only naked residents can use the communal areas. The court said that security guards must not be hired to ensure that nudity laws are being followed in the shared swimming pool.

The court gave its verdict after eight people n the development in Almeria's Andalucían province took legal action, claiming that the nudity policy enforced was violating their basic rights.

After the regional courts dismissed their case, the locals decided to file a case in the Supreme Court which eventually delivered a verdict in their favour.

Even though few people belonging to the development claimed that they were born with “a strong naturist-nudist vocation” and that in communal areas like gardens and pools, nudity was “indispensable”, the judges disagreed.

“A climate was created that was unbearable for the complainants and many other neighbours, who were hounded, coerced and discriminated against solely because they did not practise nudism. Their holiday homes had gone from being a place of rest to a place of suffering,” said the judges.

The Supreme Court said that the lower courts were incorrect in rejecting the pleas filed earlier.

“This court has found a patent error in the evidence used to support that conclusion, given that a simple reading of the minutes of the community meeting clearly proves that the said statutes were not approved and that that question was not addressed in earlier proceedings,” the judges said.

The judges added that the facts of the case were far beyond what they called “a mere dialectical debate” and was involving the imposition of rules which gravely violated fundamental rights.

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“While there had been previous attempts to impose naturism, during Holy Week 2017 the respondents hired a security company that deployed several guards at the entrance to the pool and instructed them to refuse entry to anyone who was not naked and to expel anyone by the pool who was wearing a swimming costume,” the court said.

“As a consequence, we are granting the appeal because there was no reason to arbitrarily – through acts of force, such as hiring private security guards – stop the complainants enjoying the rights to which they are entitled in communal areas if they did not practise nudism, which, while being a perfectly legitimate and respectable personal choice, cannot be enforced without reason,” the judges added.

(With inputs from agencies)

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