SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE/MADRID, May 11. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) estimates that there have been at least 1,079 sentence reductions and 108 releases due to the entry into force of the so-called “only yes is yes” law, according to data collected by the government body of judges as of May 1, which in the specific case of the Canary Islands numbered 34 and three, respectively.
Thus, the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) has issued four sentence reductions –has reviewed 16 sentences in total–; the Las Palmas Court, 16 sentence reductions and two releases –with 106 reviews– and the Santa Cruz de Tenerife Court, 14 sentence reductions and one release.
Although the official data was known this Thursday, CGPJ sources advanced on May 3 that the barrier of a thousand sentence reductions had been exceeded. So, 1,025 sentence reductions and 105 releases were signed up.
The CGPJ reported for the first time on the impact of the ‘only yes is yes’ law on March 1, with 721 reductions and 74 releases. Subsequently, on April 14, he offered a first update: 978 reductions and 104 releases.
This Thursday is, therefore, the second update made by the CGPJ, which agreed to review the data periodically. However, it has clarified that “they do not include the sentence reviews that may have been processed by the criminal courts, competent to prosecute crimes against sexual freedom punishable by up to five years in prison, given the difficulty of collecting this information.”
The courts that have carried out the most sentence reviews since the entry into force of the Law on the Comprehensive Guarantee of Sexual Freedom, on October 7, are the provincial courts (2,138), agreeing to 940 reductions and 103 releases. There are still 231 reviews pending.
MADRID, AT THE HEAD
The Court of Madrid is the one that has ordered the most descents and exits from prison, with 126 and 16, respectively. Plus, it has another 187 revisions in progress, so those numbers could keep getting fatter.
By number of sentence reductions, they are followed by the Court of Alicante, with 55 reductions and 3 releases; Cádiz (49 and 8); Barcelona (47 and 4), Balearic Islands (46 and 6).
At the bottom of the table are Ávila and Soria, which have not reduced sentences or ordered release from prison; La Rioja and Segovia, with 1 discount and no release; and Cuenca (2 and 0).
As for the Superior Courts of Justice (TSJ), they have agreed to 118 reductions and 5 releases. Madrid is once again in the lead, with 43 reductions, although no release from prison. Aragón is the one that has ordered the most releases, with 3.
After Madrid, the TSJ of Andalusia and Valencia are the ones that have applied the most reductions (9), together with the Balearic Islands (8) and Catalonia (7). To the contrary, Cantabria and Castilla y León have not agreed reductions, while La Rioja has only dictated one.
On the other hand, the National Court has only carried out 7 reviews, with one conviction and no release. And the Supreme Court has analyzed 47 cases, resolving 20 reductions.
Thus, in percentages, the Supreme Court is the court that has decided the most sentence reductions (42.6%), while the provincial courts have ordered 30.8% and the TSJ 27.7%. The National Court, only 14.3%.
SUPREME EARRINGS
The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court is expected to hold a monographic plenary session between June 6 and 7 to set criteria on the reviews carried out by the sentencing courts due to the criminal reform.
It will be the first time that the high court enters to analyze whether the courts have properly applied the Organic Law of Comprehensive Guarantee of Sexual Freedom in their sentence reviews.
The magistrates will carry out this study with the objective of not only unifying criteria but also establishing doctrine, and because it already accumulates more than 20 appeals against review orders.
