Press Conference: MA Housing Courts Suspend All Due Process Rules for Evictions – and Their Actions Really Mean the Stripping of All Rights
The Mass. Alliance Against Predatory Lending (MAAPL), with its local Worcester affiliate, announced on January 6, 2025 the final release of its comprehensive report on the suspension of all due process rules by the Housing Courts of Massachusetts now entering their fifth year. The Mass.gov court website promises continuing indefinite suspension — all rules are not discretionary and not uniform, and so by definition they are not “rules”.
MAAPL held a press conference on January 6, 2025 at 2:30 pm in front of the Worcester Courthouse, 225 Main St. to make a brief statement and protest.
Download and read the Table of Contents of MAAPL’s report here ( PDF )
Violations of rights have reached a shocking level and continue to worsen:
- Knowing and intentional evictions of people outright denied notice or any day in court by Housing Court judges
- Closing of court proceedings to the public and media with no notice and no attempt at claiming a legal basis
- Refusal of access to public records
- Allowing of the Court taking and relying on “evidence” never provided to defendants
- Stripping our First Amendment rights to freely associate, assemble, free speech and to work together to redress grievances
- Documented discrimination in being heard and outcomes
- Denial or even outright reversal of Mss. Supreme Judicial Court decisions
- Use of untrained and de-authorized persons for physical assault on homes and occupants
- Authorization of unlicensed movers and warehouses with track record of theft and destruction of people’s belongings.
The Report includes 40 topic areas including direct violations of impartiality at a time of historic and still ever-increasing numbers of “executions for possession” (court orders permitting physical removal of occupants).
And now the Housing Courts are denying defendants’ right to remove to Superior Court, the only Massachusetts court still providing Due Process rules and rights in eviction cases.