LESS JAIL TIME FOR RAPISTS: Spanish courts have started to apply the new Full Guarantee of Sexual Freedom Act, known as the “only yes means yes law”, which came into effect at the start of October. The controversial result is less jail time for some previously convicted sex offenders. One teacher jailed for six years and nine months has already been released, El Mundo reported. Another man sentenced to six years for raping a female friend saw his sentence reduced to four years. And a third man jailed for eight years for raping the 13 year-old daughter of his girlfiend saw his time reduced to six years.
LAWYERS on Twitter said they were just doing their job, applying the law that parliament had seen fit to pass.
NOT THE LAW: The government representative for Gender Violence, María Victoria Rosell (Podemos), herself a judge, condemned the judidical decisions, and said “chauvinist justice creates impunity. The problem is not the law”.
IT MIGHT BE THE LAW: Spanish Finance Minister María Jesúes Montero (PSOE), said in the Senate this evening that things might have to be reevaluated: “I think that after some of these judgements based on the law, we will have to study the judgements closely. Obviously, that was not the aim”.
Could the government change the law again in this parliament, or could this new controversy last all the way to the elections?
SUPREME COURT ORDERS SEPARATIST RETRIAL: Spain’s top court has ordered the Regional High Court in Catalonia to retry four members of the regional parliament convicted of contempt in 2020 in relation to their role in the events of October 2017. The higher court found that two judges in the lower court had previously expressed explicit positions on matters pertaining to the original trial, and had therefore not acted impartially.
10 DAYS TO GET TO JAIL: The Provincial Court in Seville rejected an appeal by the former Socialist Party (PSOE) First Minister of Andalusia, Pepe Griñán, and seven others, to suspend their jail time “while a pardon for the condemend is processed”. The court has ordered him to get to jail within the next 10 days. Could Sánchez process a pardon that quickly?
TRUCKERS GIVE UP AFTER ONE DAY: the independent truckers association that had organised a new national “indefinite” strike announced the suspension of the stoppage at lunchtime, claiming harrassment and manipulation by the authorities, bosses unions, loading companies and the media in “this corrupt, rotten system”. “Noone is going to break us”, said a note posted on Facebook. What must the truckers who believed in the new protest now think?
SPAIN INFLATION = 7.3%: the headline rate has fallen 3.5 points since the summer high, from nearly 11% to above 7% now, but the underyling rate (without food or energy products) is remained above 6% during that period.
SÁNCHEZ G20: Spain’s PM got his brief photo with Xi Jinping at the G20 meeting in Bali, and tweeted that it was a: “meeting with President Xi Jinping. China is a key ally for dealing with global challenges and the crises related to the Ukraine war”.
SPAIN POLAND MISSILE ATTACK: No first response yet from Spain on the Russian missile attack on Poland this evening, which killed two people, according to a Press Association report citing a senior US intelligence official.
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