Spain’s parliament on Thursday finalized its review of sex crimes legislation, which, after six months in force, reduced the sentences of more than 1,000 rapists and sparked the coalition’s biggest crisis in the government.
“The best way to defend the law, which is a feminist advancement, is to make this technical change to the Penal Code”Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said in a parliamentary debate on Wednesday after apologizing to victims of sex crimes over the weekend for reducing the sentences of more than 1,000 rape convicts in recent months.
However, the socialists made progress with this legislative reform in the absence of the partners in the government coalition, Unidas Podemos, and the final adoption of the amendments to the Penal Code, on Thursday, is guaranteed by the announced vote in favor of the Popular Party (PP), the largest opposition and right-wing force in Spain.
The split between the Socialist Party (PSOE) and Unidas Podemos due to this legislation is considered the biggest crisis of the governing coalition of the current Spanish legislature, which ends at the end of this year, after the partners in the executive voted against each other in the plenary session of the Congress of Deputies.
At the center of the crisis is the law that changed the crimes of rape, the “law of the only yes is yes”, one of the flags of the government, the first executive coalition of Spanish democracy and in power since 2019.
This legislation, which has been in effect since October, was intended to make the non-existence of consent for a sexual relationship the definition of an offense – and no longer if there was violence or harassment or if the victim resisted.
But the law had an undesired effect, reducing sentences for those convicted of rape, because by removing the distinction between sexual abuse (less serious) and assault, with only the latter being included in the Penal Code, it also automatically increased, the extent of prison sentences applied.
For example, men who had previously been sentenced to the minimum sentence set for sexual assault (rape) had their sentences reduced, although most requests for a review of the sentence did not receive a favorable response from the judges.
Faced with the revision of sentences for hundreds of offenders, the socialist wing of the government felt it necessary to change the law to respond to the “social alarm”, but failed to reach an agreement with the ministers of Unidas Podemos, which oversees the Ministry of Equality, from which the original legislation originated.
The break in the government prevented the revision of the law at the initiative of the executive, so it was the socialist group in parliament that came up with the proposed change.
Already on the first vote, for admission to parliamentary debate, the PSOE voted along with the PP and saw the far right abstain, allowing the review process to start.
After weeks of debate over the specialty in parliamentary committees, PP and PSOE announced an agreement last Monday that would allow the adoption of the reform on Thursday in the final vote.
The PSOE proposal maintains only one type of crime (sexual assault) and “does not touch a comma” on consent, but introduces violence and intimidation as an aggravating factor, while reviewing the range of punishments for the most serious cases, socialists said .
But for Unidas Podemos, this goes against the very purpose of the law and is, in practice, a return to the previous Penal Code, where women must again prove that they resist or that they have violent marks on their bodies in order to commit the rape. .
Equality minister and leader of Podemos (the largest party on the Unidas Podemos platform), Irene Montero, said on Monday that the PP has humiliated the PSOE with this pact and that “reforming a feminist law with the right has huge costs brings”. for the women”.
As for the PP, it has said that it will be possible to change this law because it is “a state party” and this Wednesday Sánchez asked, through the parliamentary leader, Cuca Gamarra, to apologize to the victims of assault “not with empty words”, but with deeds, dismiss minister Irene Montero.
The PP also accused Sánchez and the Socialists of taking six months to change the law, despite the effects it had, and only proceeding because of “election anxiety” in a year of municipal, regional and national elections in Spain .
Source: DN
