JJpD defends the need “to modernize crimes against public order” and FJI rules out assessing the content of the reform
MADRID, 11 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Professional Association of the Judiciary (APM) has highlighted this Friday the “political intention” behind the repeal of the sedition promoted by the Government, while the Association of Judges Francisco de Vitoria (AJFV) has requested that the legislative modification does not create “spaces of impunity”.
For their part, Judges for Democracy (JJpD) have defended the need to “modernize crimes against public order” and, in turn, the Independent Judicial Forum (FJI) has ruled out entering into the content of the text, recalling that the laws “must reflect the majority feeling of society expressed in Parliament”.
These reactions from the judicial associations come after the PSOE and United We Can have registered this Friday the organic law proposal in which they propose to repeal the current crime of sedition and replace it with another aggravated public disorder that contemplates penalties for the authorities from 3 to 5 years in prison –compared to the 10 to 15 years established by the current Penal Code– and disqualification from 6 to 8 years, compared to the 10 to 15 years established by the current law.
In statements to Europa Press, the spokesman for the Francisco de Vitoria Judicial Association (AJFV), Jorge Fernández Vaquero, expressed his concern that the intended repeal had not been proposed “by studying what is to be improved and making sure that the new regulation incorporates that improvement.
“We are concerned that a reform of the Penal Code is not carried out with a view to the future. That it be taken into account how it is going to be regulated, because if we do not have that precaution we find that in 5 or 50 years a certain very serious conduct may not be planned and go unpunished,” he warned.
Vaquero has stressed that the law should not be modified “thinking about what happened in 2017 in Catalonia”, but also thinking about what may happen in the future. Thus, and although he believes that the “small print” of the reform should be studied, he has warned about a possible lack of tools in “certain circumstances.”
For Juan José Carbonero, executive member of the APM, to make an assessment of the content of the text would be to do a “speculative exercise”. However, he considers that it is “forced to frame this type of legislative initiatives in a political context such as the current one.” “Nobody escapes us that we are entering an electoral year of very high voltage,” he explained in statements to this news agency.
Carbonero, who has insisted that this movement is “a matter of political opportunity,” has ruled out entering the fund until he knows “what the government wants to do.” “It is not good and we should not talk about issues that fall within the proper function of other powers, but we can emphasize that this type of project is inserted in a very clear and concrete political context”, he has settled.
The member of the JJpD Secretariat, Edmundo Rodríguez Achútegui, has argued that the repeal proposed by the government comes as a consequence “of the need to modernize crimes against public order, whose regulation dates back to the 19th century and is completely outdated.”
According to Rodríguez, modern European democracies updated the regulation of these criminal offenses during the second half of the 20th century, which could not take place in Spain “because the Franco regime maintained nineteenth-century provisions that did not conform to the standards required by conventions agreements that Spain has signed since the Transition”.
The current regulation in these matters, according to Rodríguez Achútegui, is not similar to that of the rest of the European countries, as evidenced by “the difficulties that the German or Belgian courts encounter in meeting the requirements” of the Supreme Court to arrest the former president of Generalitat Carles Puigdemont.
“Although the issue is sub iudice in the Court of Justice of the European Union, it is necessary to update a group of crimes that have outdated regulations, and that do not respond to the current parameters of guarantees of our rule of law,” he added.
Lastly, the president of FJI, Fernando Portillo, has refused to assess an initiative processed in Parliament, since it “does not affect the working conditions” of the magistrates “or judicial independence.”
“We are not going to make any specific assessment because it would be an interference and that we value the issue of legislative reforms when they affect judicial independence or we see a violation of fundamental rights. We want to be respectful,” he repeated.
However, Portillo has recognized that the politicians who have promoted this initiative “will have to reflect to what extent it reflects or not the majority feeling” of society.
