The Congress of Deputies votes today on the reform of the yes is yes law, a rule that has raised many blisters since its publication in October due to the reduction of a thousand sentences of sexual abusers and aggressors. What this modification entails and what practical effects it will have are the unknowns to be cleared up.
The PSOE has championed the proposal to change the text with the clear opposition of its government partner. The reason is that the sexual freedom law was Irene Montero's big bet since she came to the Ministry of Equality in response to the group rape of 'La Manada' in the San Fermines.
The party led by Pedro Sánchez has achieved the support of the Popular Party, PNV and Ciudadanos, who have added some rather technical modifications to leave their mark on the reform.
The proposed proposition is committed to creating an aggravated subtype within the crime of sexual assault so that the penalties are higher if there is violence and intimidation. From United We Can, the introduction of this change is criticized because, in their opinion, consent is displaced as a fundamental axis. The socialists have defended tooth and nail that consent remains the key.
What has been included at the proposal of the PP are five amendments. One of them refers to the penalization of the distribution of content that incites to commit sexual assaults to minors under 16 years of age, which had been decriminalized.
Another of the points that are incorporated are some technical changes such as that of the word "circumstances" for "modalities" to refer to the different modalities of sexual assault.
Once it is approved, the litmus test will definitely come. The reason why this text has been corrected six months after its publication is due to the trickle of discounts that have occurred in those already convicted of this type of crime. The reason is that the crime of sexual abuse has disappeared from the Penal Code to become all sexual assault, which in turn meant a change in the range of sentences.
This has caused the courts to have to review thousands of convictions to adapt the sentence to this latest reform of the Penal Code as it is more beneficial to them. However, the new text that reaches the plenary session of the Congress of Deputies today will not stop these revisions, but will only affect future sentences.
In fact, the courts will have to continue reviewing the sentences because the most favorable text must always be applied to the prisoner, and in this case, it was approved in October. For now, each court is applying its own criteria until the Supreme Court establishes a doctrine, which is expected to occur in a plenary session of the Criminal Chamber already convened for the first week of June.
Legal sources maintain that the socialist proposal will not avoid social alarm because the reductions will continue, although it will serve for future sentences by leaving less room for interpretation for judges when it comes to setting a sentence for sexual assault.
