The clash between the PSOE and Podemos on account of the correction of the law of only yes is yes leads to this rule to an electoral diatribe on the eve of 28-M. After the Socialists unilaterally proposed a reform with the aim of amending the imposition of lower sentences on sex offenders, Podemos yesterday registered a counterproposal that, in line with ERC and Bildu, places violence and intimidation as "aggravating circumstances" instead of, as presented by the PSOE, that these are a key factor in determining the threshold between the highest and lowest penalties. The modification proposed by Podemos supposes a flight forward that would add more legal uncertainty to the worst law of the legislature, since it does not correct the key problem of the norm: the disappearance of the gradation of penalties for a purely propagandistic interest.
The change of the law is in process in Congress and next Tuesday the amendments are scheduled to be voted. The PSOE has already communicated its clear rejection of the proposal of its partners for considering it technically deficient. The struggle between both formations can be considered a way to start the campaign taking into account that the vote on the reform will take place a month before the elections.
The fact that Podemos amends the socialist reform is an implicit recognition of the need to modify a rule that has led to the reduction of sentences for more than 800 sex offenders and the release of another 70. Late and driven by its political loneliness, Unidas Podemos now proposes a reform that does not solve the deficiencies and that is incoherent: on the one hand – and after defending the end of "punitive populism" – it raises the penalties for rape with penetration and violence to an unprecedented ceiling in Spain (from 7 to 15 years), while, on the other hand, it maintains the reductions of sentences for sexual assaults on minors. Equality has already sent this approach to the Ministry of Justice. Now he insists, after turning "consent" into an electoral slogan, in order to continue challenging the PSOE and, above all, to frustrate an eventual pact with the PP that would lead to a reform that would at least contemplate a return to differentiation between the most and least serious cases.
Forged in the heat of the ruling of La Manada, the yes is yes has been revealed as an unnecessary law, executed with an unacceptable technical clumsiness and frivolity. The only reasonable thing is to substantially recover the previous Criminal Code -incorporating the novelties that are pertinent, such as the typification of chemical submission-, which will not reverse the reductions of sentences already applied, but will guarantee more adjusted sentences in the future. The risk now is that the internal battle of the Government will lead to a reform that amplifies the harmful effects of a norm conceived from a radical socially pernicious dogmatism.
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