This is the third judicial decision that the Galician High Court agrees to review since the entry into force of the new norm
SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, 28 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Superior Court of Xustiza de Galicia has reduced from eight to six years the sentence imposed in the first instance on a man by the Provincial Court of Ourense for sexually assaulting a minor whom he had met through Instagram.
The decision of the Galician High Court occurs in application of the content of the integral guarantee of sexual freedom, known as the ‘law of only yes is yes’, through the resolution of the appeal presented by the defense of a man who sexually assaulted a minor, which has been dismissed.
In it, he ratifies the meaning of the first instance ruling but reduces the prison time by interpreting that the new law establishes for the crime for which he has been convicted (sexual assault on a minor with carnal access) minimum sentences lower than those that were in the previous norm, something from which, for the room and in accordance with the criteria of the Prosecutor’s Office, the defendant should benefit.
This is the third time that the new rule modifies judicial decisions on cases of sexual assault in Galicia: the first reduced the sentence imposed by the Court of A Coruña and the second led to the release of a sentenced to three years and jail time for attempted rape. The latter had already served the two and a half years in prison in which his sentence was set after the review of the TSXG.
In this case, the resolution – against which an appeal can be made before the Supreme Court – reduces the sentence imposed in June of this year by two years. He interprets that the new regulation establishes at its minimum six years in prison as the minimum sentence for sexual assaults on minors with carnal access, for which the previous law establishes a minimum of eight years.
Thus, the court stresses that it is “evident” that the reform is “favorable to the accused”, so the new type should be applied since the law of ‘only yes is yes’ lacks a transitory provision “that could lead, eventually , to the analysis of a different solution”.
“In the present case, the court of instance applied the minimum penalty, a penalty that in the current wording is lower in the measure expressed,” emphasizes the room chaired by the owner of the TSXG himself, José María Gómez y Díaz-Castroverde; and in which judge José Antonio Varela Agrelo appears as speaker.
The events prosecuted this year in the Ourense Court date back to September 2018, when the convicted person, who was 24 years old, contacted a minor under 15 years of age through the Instagram social network. The first instance sentence that the TSXG now ratifies determines that the man invited the minor to her house, where they drank tequila until the victim felt indisposed.
He then took her to his bed, where he undressed her and sexually abused her. The victim’s version is, both for the Court of Ourense and for the Galician High Court, “credible and exceeds the criteria established by the Supreme Court on the sole statement of the victim as valid proof of charge.”
It also stresses that the case has “peripheral corroborations” such as the statement of the victim’s father and the report of the experts from the Institute of Legal Medicine of Galicia (Imelga), who consider the minor’s story credible.
