The figure of the popular accusation allows any person or legal entity to pursue criminal actions, whether or not they have been harmed by the crime under investigation. It is a particular figure in the Spanish legal system – it is the only EU country that maintains it in its judicial system – and to which a legal reform proposal presented by the PSOE wants to put a stop.
This reform is carried out just when organizations and parties such as Vox, Clean Hands either Make yourself heard They are represented as popular accusation in judicial proceedings that directly affect the Governmentsuch as the Koldo case, the Begoña Gómez case, the investigation of Pedro Sánchez’s brother or that of the State Attorney General.
However, the popular accusation is not only contemplated by the Criminal Procedure Law, but is a right recognized by the Constitution Spanish in its article 125.
The popular accusation, in art. 125 of the Constitution
According to the article 125 of the Constitution, “citizens will be able to exercise popular action and participate in the Administration of Justice through the institution of the Jury, in the manner and with respect to those criminal proceedings determined by law, as well as in the customary and traditional Courts.”
This right of citizens to exercise popular action takes shape in the Criminal Procedure Law:
- Article 101: “Criminal action is public and all citizens can exercise it in accordance with the law.”
- Article 270: “All Spaniards, whether offended or not by the crime, can file a complaint by exercising popular action”
The PSOE reform aims to limit this figure
The PSOE proposes with this legal reform avoid opening legal proceedings based on “press clippings” and put end to popular accusations in the investigation phase (pre-trial investigation) to avoid “the constant leaking of proceedings with political objectives” or attempts to “request proceedings disconnected from the object of the investigation” to “give a media profile to a judicial process.”
The figure of the popular accusation has been part of some of the most high-profile criminal trials in democratic Spain. Now, the legal reform proposed by the PSOE could put a stop to it: a change that all judges’ associations have opposed for “disabling” the figure of popular action in judicial processes, in the words of the president of the Professional Association of the Judiciary (APM), María Jesús del Barco, to Europa Press.
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