Montero rules out resigning if there is no agreement on the reform of the 'only yes is yes' law

The Minister for Equality, Irene Montero, hopes to reach an agreement with the PSOE to reform the 'only if yes' law, despite the existence of a "strong discrepancy" between the government partners, but has ruled out resigning if this agreement does not occur.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
03 February 2023 Friday 02:38
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Montero rules out resigning if there is no agreement on the reform of the 'only yes is yes' law

The Minister for Equality, Irene Montero, hopes to reach an agreement with the PSOE to reform the 'only if yes' law, despite the existence of a "strong discrepancy" between the government partners, but has ruled out resigning if this agreement does not occur. "My obligation is to show my face and it is to be there to try to protect the main feminist advance in these 20 years. My function is that," the minister highlighted in an interview on RNE.

The head of Equality has assured "not to set limits" when negotiating the agreement and has expressed her confidence in the approach of positions. "I am confident because we have had very difficult negotiations and there has not been a feminist law in which we have not had discrepancies and, in the end, we have reached agreements and we hope that now we will resolve them."

To this end, he explained that "the conversations are multiple" in order to "give a strong and unified response", although he has declined to give details about it. He has also recognized, as "a possible scenario" that the PSOE decides to approve a reform without counting on United We Can. "One in politics always has to be prepared to contemplate all scenarios," Montero has indicated, although he has admitted that he would not like to return "to the scheme of penalties for violence or intimidation."

"That is why I have been working my ass off for months to try to reach an agreement and I understand the offensive of the political, judicial and media right against a feminist advance like this."

What he has insisted on is the will of United We Can not give up putting consent at the center. "Whenever there has been a (feminist) law there has been resistance and that is why we need a strong response as a Government and I have even been willing to be told that I was arrogant for not wanting to reform, while I did not stop exchanging papers; I want to preserve the government's unitary response, but of course, consent cannot be touched".

In this sense, he recalled the existence of differences (with the PSOE) on "how to reform the law and whether consent can be maintained as the axis of the penal code."

Montero has not refused to raise the penalties in the Criminal Code, which, as he explained, "can be modified or raised" but "that does not have to change the definition of sexual assault." "Violence does not mean that there is a different type of sexual assault because, if your partner rapes you for years and there is no resistance, that also has to aggravate the penalty for abuse of superiority or abuse of cohabitation position," the leader indicated. of United We Can.

He recalled, however, that "no penal reform is going to prevent sentence reductions, but even so, he added, that" at the request of the president" he is willing "to do what is necessary, but without touching the definition of aggression".

Montero has refused to admit as a mistake the downward revision of sentences that has occurred in hundreds of judicial sentences since the entry into force of the norm and has recalled that "most judges are applying the law correctly", which if he admitted it is "to have underestimated the resistance to the advances of the law".

Likewise, he has denied that nobody warned them of the negative effects of the application of the norm, as pointed out by the former vice president of the Government Carmen Calvo. "No one is going to be able to present a paper, because no one notified it," pointed out Irene Montero, who specified that "the Public Prosecutor's Office warned that perhaps we were going too punitive." Likewise, he recalled that, when the then Minister of Justice, Juan Carlos Campo, "warned that if the sentences were lowered, the sentences could be reduced and pointed out that it was necessary to return to the previous maxims, hundreds of cases were reviewed to see that they were not produced those discounts".

Regarding the act of United We Can scheduled for this weekend at the Círculo de Bellas Artes, Montero has framed it in the need to claim feminist rights. "Feminists know that we should never take our rights for granted and it is impressive to have to say it," he said.

"There is an offensive against this law that reopens the debate on consent, that reactionary discourse is back now and the function that we have is to defend the model of consent in the institutional sphere and for that it is necessary to carry out public acts", she concluded the leader of the purple formation.