The Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop, is working to find a solution to the text of the 'only yes is yes' law promoted by Equality and which has generated great social alarm in the face of the wave of reductions in sentences for those convicted of abuse or sexual assaults by having changed the criminal types and the forks of the sentences. The new text with which Justice works mainly revolves around differentiating whether there has been violence, intimidation or that the victim had her will annulled for any reason. In these cases, the penalties will be aggravated by recovering the upper forks that already existed before the modification of the law. The current text does not differentiate. What was done was to create a single criminal type and modify the years in prison, which has caused the sentences to be reviewed by courts throughout Spain.
The Government is aware that the trickle of reductions and releases will not be avoided, not even by approving these corrections. Once the law of yes is yes entered into force by the Official State Gazette (BOE) on October 7, this is mandatory for the prisoner who can benefit, although the law is now modified.
The Executive of Pedro Sánchez is aware of this but with the modification that the Socialists intend to present, they seek to give a message of tranquility to society and especially to the victims so that in the attacks that are committed from now on the penalties are adequate.
Sources from the high court warn that with the new law, the criminal type has been blurred, contrary to what is aspired through the criminal doctrine, which seeks to limit the criminal types to the maximum to ensure the proportionality of the sentences.
Llop has a group of jurists to fix a law that was promoted by Equality and that then did not have the real support - only formal - of the Ministry of Justice at the time of Juan Carlos Campo. Both the technicians from the ministry and the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) itself warned of the risk of reviewing sentences. However, Sánchez did not want to create an internal conflict between the government partners and maintained the approval of the norm, against the criteria of Campo and the then vice president, Carmen Calvo.
Before the law promoted by Irene Montero, there was a difference between sexual abuse and sexual assault, and in both types it was distinguished whether there was carnal access or not. What differentiated both is that the abuses were an attack without violence or intimidation. In addition, Montero's star law included the obligation of express consent, an idea promoted at the time by Calvo, a term that under no circumstances is it proposed to change in the proposed amendment, according to ministerial sources.
Llop's team does not propose to recover the abuses because that would mean lowering the penalties from those set by the current law. The goal is for all sexual assault to be considered. However, in case of violence and intimidation the penalties will increase.
With the current norm, sexual assault without access has a range of 1 to 4 years. Justice proposes that in the most serious cases it be raised to five years. Otherwise, the penalty could be set in its lower half.
Another proposal is in the case of sexual assault with carnal access. With the yes is yes law, the sentence goes from four to twelve years (the minimum sentence was reduced by two years, which has led to the revision of hundreds of sentences). What is proposed now is that in serious cases, the sentences of six to twelve years be restored. In addition, the aggravated types when the aggression is committed by more than two people, the victim is especially vulnerable, there is use of weapons or the violence is especially vexatious, the penalties would range from 12 to 15 years.
And finally, in the case of sexual assaults on minors under 16 years of age, Justice proposes raising both the minimum and maximum sentences to 15 years, three more years than those set now
