One year after the elections, a new law from the Spanish left-wing government is unleashing an explosive controversy. And for good reason, this law that supposedly fights sexual violence could, in fact, allow certain convicts to reduce their sentences.
In Spain, the law provides for the retroactive modification of sentences when a change in the penal code benefits the convicted. Which is partly the case with this emblematic law called “only a yes is a yes” (“only if yes” in the original version), which entered into force on October 7.
In general, this law was intended to harden the arsenal against rape, to affirm the need for the expression of consent. However, it also had the effect of reducing penalties for other types of sexual violence. Several hundred convicts have thus been able to submit requests for review and the courts have begun to decide in favor of some of them.
Released at least four people
A man who sexually assaulted his underage stepdaughter, for example, had his sentence reduced from eight to six years in prison, while a teacher, convicted of having sex with four underage students in exchange for money, was released prison for most of his six-year, nine-month sentence was overturned.
According to the Spanish press, at least four people have already been released. This controversy put the government of the socialist Pedro Sánchez on the defensive, and especially his Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, a member of the radical left party Podemos (a minority ally of the Socialists within the coalition in power), who made this read his workhorse.
On Wednesday, Irene Montero accused the judges who validated reduced sentences of “machismo”, questioning their lack of “training”. A member of her party, Javier Sánchez Serna, went so far as to describe these magistrates as “fachos in a tunic.” “Intolerable attacks”, according to the body representing the judges, the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), which reminded the Government that it had warned it in February of the legal risks of this text, then in the process of scrutiny in the Parliament .
The springs of a mechanism.
Dubbed “only a yes is a yes,” this law markedly abolished the distinction between the crime of “sexual abuse,” with lesser penalties, and that of “sexual assault,” which included rape and which previously required the presence of violence or intimidation. be restrained Distinction at the center of a case that had upset the country in 2016, with the rape in Pamplona of a woman by five men, who themselves had nicknamed their gang “los Meute”. According to the lawyers, the current sentence reductions are due to the fact that the minimum sentence has been lowered mechanically, since all sexual violence came to be classified as “assault”.
In detail, as Euronews reminds us, the mechanism is as follows: in the event of a change in the criminal law, lighter penalties can be applied as long as the case examined does not present any aggravating circumstances. Manuel Cancio Melia, a professor of criminal law at the Autonomous University of Madrid, told the news site: “In some cases, the sentences can be reduced if the judges consider that there is no violence or intimidation.”
Thus, if they believe that their client can benefit from it, the lawyers for the convicted can request the adaptation of the sentence to which they are subjected. This is precisely what happened here. These sentence reductions were not, however, inevitable, as demonstrated by the warning from the General Council of the Judiciary, or this BBC article.
However, the legislator forgot, in this case, to include a so-called transitory provision that would restrict the number of files likely to benefit from such a review.
The government trapped?
From Bali, where he had just participated in the G20 summit, Pedro Sánchez defended his law anyway this Wednesday, one of the essential texts of his government, whose objective, according to him, is “to give more guarantees to women before any type of sexual assault”.
However, it has not reached the end of its problems. In fact, the executive must face a final stumbling block. Reforming the new law, as some ministers have suggested, would be of no use, since retroactivity does not apply if the new provision is unfavorable for the convicted person.
Source: BFM TV
