The parliamentary groups of Esquerra Republicana, Junts per Catalunya, the PSC and En Comú Podem have registered this Tuesday a bill to reform the crime of pedophilia in the Penal Code and prevent the most serious cases from statute of limitations.
The forces of the Parliament have announced their proposal through a joint statement, and it has been presented after a meeting between the parties and a group of representatives and victims' entities to respond to their demands. In this way, the debate and approval of the law takes place in the chamber before it reaches the Congress of Deputies, which will decide on its approval.
The four parliamentary groups propose that pedophilia crimes sentenced to more than five years in prison do not have a criminal statute of limitations from the moment of approval of the law, since the Penal Code is not retroactive.
The different forces of the Parliament already revealed the intention to make a proposal of this type effective last October, to follow the line of other European countries such as Portugal, which promoted a reform in the statute of limitations for pedophilia crimes last July, or like France, which raised the time limit to 30 years starting in 2018.
Ireland, Cyprus, Denmark and Belgium are the only countries in the European Union that allow victims to report all or most pedophile crimes, with no time frame for the statute of limitations for the crime.
