Barcelona City Council, the Bar Association and civil society committed yesterday to a common front to promote the legal measures necessary to combat the phenomenon of multiple recidivism. In an event at the Illustrious Bar Association of Barcelona, which was attended by mayors, deputies and members of Barcelona's civil society, the lawyers presented two legislative proposals to curb multiple recidivism and illegal occupations legal The first aims to improve the application of the aggravating factor for recidivism for those who commit three thefts, a measure that has not worked so far. And the second aims to guarantee that in cases of illegal occupation, the owners can recover the homes in a matter of 48 hours, and not in twenty months, as is the case now.
The mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, supported these measures yesterday and assured that there is "a metropolitan clamor" for the behavior of thieves who act repeatedly to be punished. "We have to make repeat offenders stop laughing at our police officers and the judicial system," he said. He recalled that the figures are on the rise, despite the efforts of the administrations to put more cash on the streets. In recent years, 1,000 urban guards and 600 police officers have been added to Barcelona, but the reality is that, when the crime has to be tried, they run into "a funnel", said Collboni, referring to the words of the judge dean of Barcelona, who warned of the underfunding of the justice system to deal with multi-recidivism.
The mayor endorsed and endorsed the lawyers' proposals and assured that he has contacted the ministry and the Ministry of Justice so that they can adopt them. "I found a good predisposition", he stressed.
The first proposal of the lawyers is to remove the current requirement that requires the sum of the amounts stolen in three minor crimes to be greater than 400 euros. "We have projected a reform that will go back. If the criminal has been convicted of three minor crimes, an aggravating factor will be applied to him and the crime will become a less serious one", explained lawyer Emilio Zegrí, one of the speakers of the proposal.
The current law to apply the aggravating factor of multiple recidivism requires that the amount of what has been stolen in the three minor crimes exceeds 400 euros. The lawyers' proposal calls for this requirement to be withdrawn and that, in any case, it is the defendant's lawyer who claims before the judge that the amount that was stolen the other times corresponded to minimal amounts. "We relieve the judge of looking for the three previous sentences and pass the burden of the irrelevance of the evidence to the defense", added Zegrí. At the same time, they also propose that the theft of a mobile phone be considered a less serious crime and can be punished with between one and three years in prison. In this way, the theft of mobile phones would be equated with the theft of items of artistic, historical or basic necessity value. "An appropriate response must be given in the 21st century. We don't want more prisons, but we do want more peace of mind for the citizens", reasoned lawyer Jorge Navarro, another of the drafters of the proposal.
The second approach of the legal profession aims to speed up evictions in cases of illegal occupation. The scenario drawn by the lawyer Cristina Vallejo, who has studied the matter, is that in Catalonia it takes an owner an average of 20 months to recover an occupied flat. According to data from the Ministry of the Interior, illegal occupations have increased by 62.5% in recent years, and in Catalonia the situation is particularly worrying. In the first semester of 2022, of the 10,220 jobs in Spain, half were in Catalonia (4,341). They propose a reform of the Penal Code that states that home invasion and usurpation are flagrant crimes, so that judges can order evictions within 48 hours. "It is a failure of the rule of law when a legitimate owner cannot recover his home within a reasonable period", denounced Vicente Pérez Daudí, professor of Procedural Law at the University of Barcelona.
