Pilar Llop (Madrid, 1973) has shown her face in recent weeks to calm the social alarm generated by the reductions in sentences for sexual abusers and aggressors as a result of the modification of the law of only yes is yes. Her “mission” has been to prepare a proposal to reform the law, although the damage has already been done. Sentence reviews will continue to occur. However, the PSOE, with the support of the Ministry of Justice, wants to stop the bleeding and that at least the new sentences have "more proportionate" sentences.
Llop has the support of the Prime Minister. She is a career judge, her specialty has been gender violence. She was promoted to be president of the Senate and from there she came to Justice to replace Juan Carlos Campo, who had precisely shown her discrepancies with the Ministry of Equality for the elaboration of the law for the comprehensive guarantee of sexual freedom.
The Government continues to defend that the only yes is yes is a good law. What was the ruling then?
When the first review occurs and a sentence is lowered in the Government, we are alarmed. We start to analyze the resolutions that are coming out and what are the responses of the courts. Obviously this was an effect that nobody wanted, nobody wanted this to happen. There has been a notable number of sentence reductions. It is a very serious situation and that is where we identified the focus of the problem.
They say that this is not the time to look for culprits, but is nobody going to assume political responsibility for what happened?
I am assuming what corresponds to me as head of the Ministry of Justice, which has been to seek a solution.
However, the ministers Campo and Carmen Calvo were dismissed after showing their discrepancies with the law. Shouldn't Irene Montero now assume responsibility for her?
I do not know what was the reason for the dismissals. I honestly don't know. It is a decision of the President of the Government. What I do know is that the law is a government law, the entire government was there and it is a good law. What happens is that it has produced imbalances and with its entry into force in October the sentences have been reviewed as the sentence brackets have been lowered and this has not been accepted, causing great suffering to the victims.
From Equality, judges have been branded as macho. Do you think that the reductions have been due to a problem of misinterpretation of the law?
Once a law enters into force, it takes on a life of its own and is applied and interpreted by judges in an absolutely independent and free manner.
The PSOE has presented its own reform without having Equality, despite the fact that they say they delivered up to four proposals.
We have taken into account some suggestions that have been made to us. However, others did not seem right to us, just as Equality did not agree with some of ours. Now we need a text that is very rigorous, because if it technically fails again and there is another unwanted effect, the situation would be quite serious. There is a problem and it must be solved.
You have said that you are responsible for the reform. Will it continue to do so with the text that sees the light after the parliamentary process?
If there are changes, it will be the law that Parliament decides to approve. I have fulfilled a mission that was to find a political and technical solution to a problem. We have found a solution, but logically when the laws reach Parliament they start rolling and it is the parliamentary groups who have to seek their agreements. Here it is about giving a satisfactory answer to the victims.
And if the reform sees unwanted effects again, who is going to take responsibility?
What everyone wants is for this law to fix the problem of penalties because there are not 400 numbers (estimated number of reductions to date), it is that there are 400 victims who have names and surnames. We should listen to those parents of assaulted children. In some cases there have been releases of aggressors that have forced the victims to move to their place of work. This generates a lot of insecurity in society and therefore, since it is not socially accepted, it is necessary to act on the focus of the problem, which is the penalties. This does not mean going back to the previous model, but setting proportionate penalties and not leaving such wide margins of discretion because it creates legal uncertainty.
Do you trust that Podemos will finally support the reform?
I am confident that a consensus will be reached among all the parliamentary groups to move forward with a text whose only objective is to restore the victims and avoid imposing low sentences for serious events.
Have all bridges with Equality been broken?
We keep talking. It is evident that there are differentiated positions but now it is time to think about the victims, who are the ones who are suffering.
Can the reform of the crime of embezzlement generate some social alarm when convictions begin to be reviewed?
The reform of the Penal Code on embezzlement contains some transitory provisions that the law of only yes is yes did not contain. I don't know how the courts are going to interpret it in the review phase. We have not yet analyzed any resolution, but that is already a function of the courts.
The Supreme will review the sentence of the process. If he maintains the thesis that it is aggravated embezzlement, he will make it impossible for those convicted to stand in the next elections. Could this cause a new inflammation in Catalonia?
I don't know what the Supreme Court decision will be. I do know that the Prosecutor's Office has a criterion, the State Attorney's Office has another criterion; It will logically depend on the decision of the courts. But what I do know is what this government has done. From the first moment, open those bridges, those channels of dialogue, as had never been done before in our country in order to avoid confrontation. And of course, the situation we have now is very different from what it was a few years ago when the Popular Party governed, where there was a disengagement law, an illegal referendum, a unilateral declaration of independence...
Could the repeal of the crime of sedition favor the surrender of the former president of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, to the Spanish courts this year and could he be prosecuted this year?
I think it has been something very positive that this reform has been addressed because it was a crime that no longer fit in at all with our Penal Code. It was a crime that was outdated in relation to other surrounding legislation. If this favors Mr. Puigdemont's return to Spain and he can turn himself in, it will have been something very positive.
The reform of the law seems to have covered the indefinite strike that the lawyers of Justice have called. Do you think, like your Secretary of State, that this is a “political strike”?
They are excellent professionals, they are an indispensable and essential piece in the administration of justice for the smooth running of the proceedings. With the reforms that have been taking place, different powers have been attributed to them and precisely for this reason, when I arrived at the Ministry, a provision that had been previously approved in the General State Budget was implemented, which involved an amount of approximately 40 million euros to be able to adapt the civil servants of the ministerial territory to the national average. An approximate increase of about 196 euros on average per month. But it seems that this has not met their expectations and they are making claims that, logically, are always legitimate. There's no doubt. We must flee from maximalism, from extremes and we must try to know where we are. And where we are right now is a moment of crisis in which we are implementing a lot of measures. [Among them] the increase of all civil servants. We are going to see how we can all do our part so that the public service is not harmed and that citizens are not harmed.
