18,439 euros of pension and without a public defender: the case of a pensioner who questions the limits of free justice in the Balearic Islands

PalmaA citizen of Mallorca, Juan Pérez, has appealed the denial of free legal aid issued by the Free Legal Assistance Commission of Mallorca and has brought to the table the debate regarding the economic thresholds that determine who can access this service. Pérez, who has been granted a permanent total disability pension, has an annual gross income of 18,439.38 euros, an amount that the Administration has deemed sufficient to afford a lawyer, as it exceeds the established threshold of 18,000 euros.

The affected individual argues that his case should be resolved differently and demands that he be recognized the right to free legal assistance. To do so, he relies, among other arguments, on a Supreme Court precedent that is considered relevant to his case. The procedure has reached the courts after he was required on July 30, 2026, to submit the allegations and evidence he deemed appropriate against the resolution that denied him the benefit.

Pérez also has a minor daughter, a circumstance that the Commission has taken into account when determining the scale that corresponds to him. This fact denotes that the conflict, therefore, is not about what income he has or the composition of his family, but rather raises the question of whether the current economic limit to access free legal aid in one of the most expensive places to live in the Spanish state is guaranteed.

The regulations establish income scales to be able to access free legal aid. In the case of families with fewer than four members, the limit is two and a half times the IPREM, the indicator used as a reference to determine access to different aid and benefits.

The problem is that the annual amount of the IPREM (Public Multiple Effects Income Indicator) that must be taken as a reference can be interpreted in different ways. The document presented by Pérez argues that the amount of 8,400 euros per year should be taken into account and not the 7,200 euros. With this interpretation, the threshold for a family unit like his would be 21,000 euros per year. This would mean that Pérez's income would fall below the limit and he could access free legal aid without the need to apply any exception.

The Supreme Court recognized free legal aid in a similar case

To defend this interpretation, the affected party appeals to a resolution of the Supreme Court from July 2024. In that case, the High Court analyzed the situation of a woman who had also initially been denied free legal aid because the Commission considered that her family unit's income exceeded the limit.

The Supreme Court started from an annual IPREM of 8,400 euros and set the threshold corresponding to two and a half times this indicator for a two-member family unit at 21,000 euros. In that proceeding, the court determined that the actual income of the family unit was 20,041.70 euros per year, below the limit it had considered applicable. For this reason, it revoked the denial and recognized the right to free legal assistance.

Pérez considers this precedent to be "of special relevance" to his case and asks that the same criteria be applied. If the courts share this interpretation, his income would fall within the limit established to access free legal aid. "I wanted to appeal my case, because of how it affects me directly, but also for the cases of other citizens, because surely there are many people affected," notes Juan Pérez.

As reported by ARA Balears last year, the profile of people requesting the free legal aid service and a public defender has changed in recent years. “We find that the middle class is disappearing and there are more and more users who need our services,” explained Carmen López, president of the public defender's office of the Balearic Islands. According to the latest data from the Bar Association of the Balearic Islands (ICAIB), the number of people requesting the service has increased annually – the increase was 30% in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period the previous year. In many cases, applicants for this service cannot access it because their income exceeds the maximums established to receive it, even if they are in a situation of economic vulnerability, a situation that would clearly generate a position of legal defenselessness for citizens.

The regulation allows taking into account factors such as the number of children and dependents, the costs of the procedure, and other circumstances that may make it especially difficult to assume the costs of a judicial process. In this case, Pérez argues that his economic and family situation should be assessed before definitively denying free legal aid. He also focuses on the fact that his income is very close to the limit applied by the Commission.

The case has been referred to the Ombudsman

Beyond the appeal before the courts, Juan Pérez is not backing down and has decided to also refer the matter to the Ombudsman so that he may investigate the criteria applied in the Balearic Islands to determine access to free legal aid, especially in cases where income is received in fourteen payments. In his written submission, Pérez asks the body to examine the legal basis for applying an annual IPREM reference of 7,200 euros in these cases, instead of the 8,400 euros that were used in the Supreme Court ruling of July 24, 2024, regarding free legal assistance.

Pérez insists that he is not asking the Ombudsman to resolve the ongoing judicial proceeding he has pending, but rather to investigate whether there is a uniform criterion, an instruction, a protocol, or another legal basis that justifies the application of a different annual IPREM amount in the field of free legal aid in the Balearic Islands.

The petition focuses on a situation that may affect other people with limited income, especially pensioners who receive their earnings in fourteen payments and who may be left out of the system due to very small differences. As Pérez argues, the matter deserves a review so that economic scales do not produce a disproportionate exclusion of people who, despite slightly exceeding a certain threshold, may find themselves in an economic situation that prevents them from assuming the costs of a judicial proceeding.

The document also places this claim within the context of the debate on the economic dignification of the public defender system. Pérez states that he does not question the right of professionals to receive adequate remuneration, but rather considers that this demand must be accompanied by the guarantee that vulnerable people can effectively access the service. "I am not making an accusation against the Bar Association nor against any body," the affected party points out in his petition. He requests an objective, transparent, and legally grounded explanation regarding the criterion applied and its effects.

The intervention of the Ombudsman opens a second avenue to review the problem, parallel to Pérez's judicial procedure. While the courts will have to determine whether the criteria applied in his case are legally correct and whether he is entitled to the benefit of free legal aid, the body that watches over citizens' rights will be able to analyze, within its competencies, whether the administrative criteria used to determine economic limits are coherent, transparent, and compatible with the goal of guaranteeing effective access to Justice.

The cost of living in the Balearic Islands, on the table

The case raises an issue that goes beyond the personal situation of Juan Pérez: do the current scales really reflect the standard of living and the economic capacity of families in the Balearic Islands?

The criteria for accessing free legal aid are national and apply to the whole of the State, regardless of the territory. However, the cost of housing and other basic expenses is particularly high in the Islands: the same income meets daily expenses in a very different way depending on where one lives. According to the INE Living Conditions Survey (2025), the Balearic Islands recorded the highest percentage of people who sought housing without managing to change residence, with 10.6%. The main reason declared was precisely the excessive price.

The Islands have reached new highs in recent years and, currently, the average sale price is 5,595 euros per square meter in August 2026, the highest figure in the Idealista series. The price has increased by 5.1% in one year and 9.9% just throughout 2025. The rising cost of housing contributes to increasing the effective cost of living in the Islands and reduces the real economic capacity of households. An income that on paper may place a person slightly above a certain state scale can have a very different purchasing power in a territory where housing absorbs an especially high part of income.

This reality is what Pérez incorporates as one of the elements that, in his view, should be taken into account when assessing whether a person with his income can assume the cost of a judicial proceeding. The courts will have to decide whether they consider the 21,000 euro criterion used by the Supreme Court in 2024 to be applicable or if, on the contrary, they maintain a lower threshold. Therefore, they will have to analyze whether Pérez's personal, family, and economic situation justifies granting him access to free legal aid.